


for better, for worse

by kaspbrak_kid



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Coming Out, First Kiss, Getting Together, I just want them to kiss, M/M, Making Out, Panic Attacks, Pining, Romance, Slow Dancing, Weddings, canon character death who i don't know her, i went to a wedding and had a lot of feelings about reddie, some discussion of mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-11-23 12:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20892413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaspbrak_kid/pseuds/kaspbrak_kid
Summary: Eddie's done a fucking lot of brave things in the past year and a half. He did a lot of brave things in Derry, and then left his wife and started therapy and came to Ben and Bev's wedding even though he's been in love with his best friend for somewhere between six months and thirty years. Even though he knew it'd be fucking hard. He's not sure how many brave things he has left in him.





	1. Chapter 1

There’s nothing Eddie hates more than airports. 

Festering cesspools of foreign diseases, that’s what they are. Breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant viruses. A bunch of strangers touching Eddie’s passport and Eddie’s luggage and Eddie’s _body_. Babies sneezing on planes and peeing on terminal carpets. Everyone breathing the same stale air for hours. It’s disgusting. 

He’d be able to handle it better if he’d slept at all. But as it is, he had to get up at four in the fucking morning, and was so anxious about missing his flight that he didn’t sleep at all before that. He almost dozed off on the plane, but someone in the row behind him threw up when they hit turbulence, and he hadn’t been able to close his eyes after that. He’d sanitized his hands eighteen times. 

No amount of fucking therapy could prepare Eddie for the airport. 

But he can’t even leave, once he lands. Instead, he has to pick up his germ-infested suitcase from baggage claim, and then sit there on a sticky vinyl seat weighing the pros and cons of airport bathrooms versus a fucking bladder infection, waiting. 

His phone pings insistently. It’s all just the Losers, making last-minute arrangements. Ben’s trying to get ahold of the photographer. Mike is being shifty about the tuxes. Bev is making vague threats. 

Richie hasn’t said anything in five hours. That’s good, Eddie reminds himself stubbornly. If he had, the message would probably be, _Hey, whoops, my plane just crashed._ Or something like that. Eddie tries not to think about it. 

_The fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights in 2018 was 0.36 per million flights_, a little voice whispers to him. He looked it up last night. _That’s one fatal accident for every 3 million flights. He’s probably fine._

_That’s dumb,_ Eddie tells himself a little harshly. _You’re a fucking germophobe, that’s a different problem, stop having new problems._

He does some breathing exercises. People give him looks on their way out of baggage claim. Eddie would flip them off, but he’s too busy counting out his exhales. 

It takes forty minutes for his phone to chime with a different sound than the Losers’ message tone. He picks it up. 

_Richie (11:13am)  
Just touched down in Miami babyyyy. You there already?_

Eddie swallows compulsively, four times. His heart pounds in his throat. It’s fine, he tells himself, it’s fine. It’s been a while, but he’s fine. Last time everything turned out okay, and he’s only gotten better since then, right? More therapy. Different medication. Real medication, now. Not like he used to. Sometimes he worries that it’s not real medication. That everyone thinks he’s a pathetic fuck-up who needs placebos just to get by. 

He’s asked the pharmacist more than once. He’s starting to get concerned looks. 

(It’s real medication. He’s not allowed to stop taking it without consulting his psychiatrist first.)

_Yeah_, he types out with sweaty fingers. He didn’t even know fingers _could_ sweat until nineteen months ago. It’s disgusting. He wipes down his phone screen with an antibacterial wipe. 

_Richie (11:15am)  
Alright just gotta get off this plane. See you in a bit._

Eddie blows out a shaky breath and puts down his phone, then picks it back up again, restless. He scrolls up through his and Richie’s texts. 

They’re not that frequent. They talk in the group chat, mostly. Eddie thinks about texting him all the time, several times a day, and then never does. It’s all just stupid shit, anyway. A dream he had or a movie he saw on TV that he remembers Richie used to like, and does he still like it? Some things his therapist tells him he should say, like that he’s been in love with Richie for somewhere between six months and thirty-odd years. 

Instead, most of their private texts are just inane bickering, or Richie trying out jokes on him, or Eddie telling Richie how to clean the cut he just accidentally gave himself opening a can. He could have just googled it. But he asked Eddie. 

Eddie had thought about that one so much that he brought it up to his therapist. So that tells you where he’s at, mentally. 

(That was the session when his therapist—Nancy—said to him, “Eddie, have you ever thought you might have feelings for him?” and Eddie said, “What?” and Nancy said, “Non-platonic feelings.” Eddie had thrown up.)

Richie steps into his line of vision fifteen minutes later, and Eddie’s heart slams against his ribs so hard he thinks he might be having a heart attack, and then Richie grins and suddenly everything’s alright. Everything’s always alright. He doesn’t know why he always _worries_ so goddamn much. 

“Hey,” Richie says, clutching a duffel and dragging a suitcase behind him. “There’s a sight for sore eyes.”

“What,” Eddie says, pulse fluttering in his jaw, expecting Richie to say _your ugly mug_ or _your thirteen gallons of hand sanitizer._

But Richie just smiles and says, “You.” He puts down his duffel. He holds out his arms. 

Eddie stumbles as he gets up, like someone’s pulling him back. He fights against it, stands. Steps into Richie’s arms, and thumps his back. Breathes him in. 

He smells like stale sweat and air travel, and it’s disgusting but he also smells like Richie, in the same way that hit Eddie like a ton of bricks in Derry a year and a half ago, bringing with it a flood of memories of hot summer days and cool basements and sweaty palms and skinny arms around his shoulders and never wanting to pull away. 

“A toddler sneezed on me on the plane,” Richie tells him. 

Eddie yanks away from him with a sound of pure horror. “Rich, you _fucking dick._” 

Richie laughs, reaching out to ruffle his hair like they’re thirteen and Eddie’s being cute. “I’m joking. Come on, I need something to eat.”

“That’s not a funny fucking joke, asshole,” Eddie tells him, ducking away from his hand. “I’m a fucking basket case.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. You’re not a basket case, Eds, you’re just...Eddie.” Richie grins at him fondly. “My fussy baby.”

“Dick,” Eddie mutters, picking up his suitcase handle. “Don’t call me a baby.”

“I can’t help it. I missed your frowny face.” Richie chucks him under the chin, and Eddie smacks his hand away, turns around to walk away from him. “Aw, Eds, don’t be like that. You can make a jab at my deepest insecurities, if you want.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but does slow down until Richie catches up with him. “No fair, you conquered your fears and shit,” he says as Richie falls into step beside him. 

“Eddie Spaghetti, if saying the words _I’m gay_ made me not scared of it anymore, I would have done it many moons ago.” Richie pinches his side, making Eddie yelp. It’s embarrassing—he elbows him back. “Go ahead, take a crack at Closet Case Tozier.”

“You’re not a closet case anymore,” Eddie says, looking around for somewhere he can get six cups of coffee. “Got any other deep dark secrets I can exploit?”

“That’s for me to know and you to spend your whole life trying to find out,” Richie says, gripping the back of Eddie’s neck and squeezing so that he hunches his shoulders. 

God. Richie’s so tactile, is always touching someone, is always touching _Eddie_. He always was. Eddie doesn’t remember it making him sweat like this, but at the same time, he kind of does. 

“Get off me, you leech,” Eddie mutters, and then doesn’t pull away. 

They move to the waiting area of the airport, walking close together, suitcases bumping. They still have to wait for Bill and his wife to arrive—the four of them are renting a car together to drive down to Mike’s place. With Richie there to watch his things, Eddie braves the airport bathroom, and then they get coffee and croissants at an expensive airport cafe and sit at a little table there, waiting. 

“So?” Richie says, stirring an absurd amount of sugar into his cup. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Since when?”

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know. Last time we saw each other, I guess.”

That was six months ago. Before Eddie threw up in Nancy’s office’s bathroom. 

Eddie hums tunelessly. “Not much has happened that I haven’t said in the group chat.”

“The last thing you said was that you were going out for drinks with some guys from work,” Richie says with a quirk of his lips. “That was two months ago.”

“That’s not the last thing I said,” Eddie says, getting his phone out to prove him wrong. “I—”

“The last thing you said about something happening in your life,” Richie interjects. “You never even said how it went.”

Eddie frowns. “It was fine. Why would you want to know that?”

“So that I don’t have to imagine what you’re doing, late at night, alone in my bed,” Richie says, and Eddie kicks him under the table. Richie laughs, says, “Seriously, Eds, I just want to know what you’re up to.”

“Nothing interesting,” Eddie says with a shrug. “Not in a bad way, just. I haven’t been up to much.”

“You think I care if it’s interesting?” Richie kicks his toe against the leg of Eddie’s chair, smiling a little. “You think I’m here for entertainment? Bev tells me fourteen dead boring stories every day and I love every second of it.”

Eddie swallows down the jealousy that immediately rises up in his throat. “You and Bev have gotten really close, huh?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, his grin fond. “It just kinda happened. Was still pretty shocked when she asked me to be her best man, though. Or...man of honour, or whatever.”

Eddie hadn’t been. Richie’s a good choice for the job. He’s a piece of shit and doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, but he’s loyal as fuck and earnest when he needs to be. And he cares about people. He cares about Bev. 

“How’s she doing?” Eddie asks. “Cold feet?”

“Not even for a second,” Richie says. “She’s been incredible. You’d think she’d be wary of marriage after everything but she hasn’t missed a beat. Bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Eddie’s eye twitches, and his stomach clenches. “_You’re braver than you think_,” Richie had told him once. Not that Eddie was the bravest person he ever met, but that he was brave nonetheless. Those words have gotten Eddie through...many rough patches. That even when Eddie didn’t think he could be brave, Richie did. Eddie wonders if that’s how Bev stays brave, too. 

“Anyway, don’t distract me! We’re not talking about Bev or the wedding, we’re talking about _you_, and all the shenanigans you’ve been getting up to in secret.”

Eddie snorts. “Seriously, Rich, I haven’t been doing anything. I work, I sleep, I go to therapy and shit so that I can maybe sleep through the night someday.”

“You’re not sleeping?” Richie asks, so terribly earnest that it punches Eddie right through the chest. 

He waves it away. “No, I am, I was exaggerating. It’s not that bad anymore.” He risks a glance at Richie and his stupid concerned eyes. “You?”

Richie shrugs. “Sometimes bad, sometimes not so bad. You really don’t do _anything?_ That’s sad, Eds, that’s really sad.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel sad. I feel...good.” Eddie sniffs. “I had to do things I didn’t want to do for so long. Like, I was...controlled, or whatever. And now I can just do nothing if I want. It’s nice.”

Richie blinks, and then grins, and ruffles Eddie’s hair again with his crumb-covered fingers. Eddie makes an agitated sound. “I should have known that the true Eddie Kaspbrak is just boring as fuck. You probably read autobiographies and watch the news and knit tiny sweaters or something.”

“Why would I knit tiny sweaters? If I was going to knit sweaters they’d be big enough to wear.”

Richie’s grin just widens. “I love you, Eds, I really do.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and tries not to heat up at that.

“I’m glad you’re feeling good and doing nothing just because you want to,” Richie tells him. “But please, _please_ get a hobby. I’m begging you. And tell me more boring stories about your boring life.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Eddie says. “What have _you_ been up to?”

And Richie launches into a story about a fight he got into with Bev’s aunt who wasn’t invited to the wedding, and it’s so easy, and it’s so familiar, leaning away from Richie’s gesticulating hands and laughing at his terrible imitations of Bev’s family members and drinking in the glow of his thousand-watt grin. Eddie’s still a little stiff and awkward, as he always has been, but Richie is the same as he’s ever been. No matter how mismatched they are, they’ve always fit together perfectly. Richie has always felt like home. 

And like all real homes—unlike the ones Eddie’s lived in his entire life—Richie’s easy to come back to and hard to leave. And Eddie _will_ have to. Leave. Eventually. 

He makes up his mind to enjoy it while he has it.

&

It’s a bad idea for Eddie to see Richie before the wedding.

He doesn’t sleep well, despite being sleep-deprived as fuck. He can never settle in hotel rooms, in an unfamiliar bed that thousands of people have slept in and fucked in before him. It doesn’t seem to matter that he already didn’t sleep the previous night, or that he spent the entire day so tightly wound he felt ready to go off at any second. He still tosses and turns for hours before sleep finds him, and then wakes up every few hours, every minute of slumber plagued by bizarre stress dreams and the hives-like feeling that germs are crawling all over him. He gets up early, miserable and still tired. 

The wedding party—Bev and Ben, obviously, but also Richie and Mike, as their respective best-men-slash-men-of-honour—is busy all day, getting ready and making sure everything is coming together last minute, so Eddie gets breakfast with Bill and his wife, and then spends the day in his hotel room, alternatingly trying to nap and watching shitty movies on cable. The ceremony is at four, and Eddie is dressed and ready to go by two. At three, Mike picks them up—Richie has the rental car—and takes them back to his place, where the ceremony will be taking place on the beach behind his house. 

It’s a gorgeous day, if blazingly hot. Eddie sits down in the white folding chairs set out on the sand, sinking about six inches into it. He’s immediately sweating in his slacks and button-down, and envies the people that showed up in shorts or sundresses. He tugs his tie looser, and grimaces at Bill’s easy laugh beside him. 

They still have half an hour until the ceremony. Eddie would rather be early for a wedding than late, but sitting under the Florida sun in formalwear, it’s almost unbearable. He starts trying to calculate if he’ll be able to shower in between the ceremony and the reception. 

More people filter into the seats, ushered by someone Eddie thinks might be Ben’s cousin. Sweat drips down the back of Eddie’s neck. If he ever gets remarried, he swears to never have an outdoor wedding. It’s just cruel. 

His phone vibrates against his thigh, and Eddie winces, pulling it out to silence it for the ceremony. 

_Richie (3:36pm)  
As best man’s best man, you are legally obligated to bring me a coffee, stat._

Eddie huffs. _Who says I’m your best man?_ he types back. _I don’t remember you asking, and I definitely wouldn’t agree to that._

The response is almost instant.

_Richie (3:37pm)  
If you don’t bring me a coffee I’ll pass out during the ceremony and Bev’ll be sad and I’ll blame you. _

_You’re onstage in twenty minutes,_ Eddie reminds him, already standing up and edging down the aisle between the chairs towards the house. 

_Richie (3:37pm)  
Then make it snappy! One cream three sugars please :)_

Eddie rolls his eyes. There’s a table set up behind all the chairs with coffee and tea and ice water, technically for after the ceremony but Eddie’s acting on orders from the bridal party so he thinks it’s allowed. He fills a cup from the spigot, dumps a cream and an unnatural amount of sugar into it, and then takes it inside. 

“Richie?” he calls when he’s through the door. “I’ve got your fucking coffee.”

“In here,” Richie calls from one of the rooms off the main hall. 

Eddie finds him standing in front of a mirror and immediately regrets all of his life choices up to this point. 

The problem is, Eddie’s in love with him in a stupid way even when Richie looks like garbage, which is all the time. His hair’s always wild and uncombed, his facial hair is always stubbly and in desperate need of a trimming, his clothes are always tacky and ill-fitted. He looks like a recovering alcoholic on a good day. And Eddie still has a fucking crush on him. If that’s what you want to call it. 

But today. _Today._ God, he wasn’t prepared. If he had taken a moment to consider it, he would have imagined Richie in a horrible velvet suit, with mismatched socks and shoes in the wrong colour. And otherwise looking exactly the same as always, because he’s a lazy piece of shit. 

Instead, Richie is in a tux obviously chosen for him by someone else—modern, navy blue, tailored. His belt matches his shoes. His hair’s been trimmed, and his curls have obviously been styled by competent human hands rather than his pillowcase. His face is clean shaven. He’s wearing a fucking _bowtie._

Eddie’s mouth goes a little dry. 

“Eds!” Richie says, catching sight of him in the mirror. “Thank god. I’m about to fall asleep standing up.”

Eddie has to swallow twice before he can respond. “Shouldn’t you be, like. Attending Bev or something?”

Richie snorts. “Not fucking likely. I have never seen a woman more dead-set on flying solo in my life.” He plucks the cup from Eddie’s hand and slurps from it obnoxiously. “Oh, sweet sweet caffeine.”

“Why are you so tired? Wild bachelorette last night?”

Richie laughs. “Nah, Bevvy came calling. I think she was trying to stave off a panic attack.”

Eddie thinks it’s cute that Richie calls her Bevvy. He’s pretty sure Bev’s dad used to call her that, which should have some negative emotions attached to it, but he always says it with such fondness. And Eddie knows a thing or two about getting attached to an obnoxious nickname coming from Richie Tozier's mouth. 

“Last minute jitters?” Eddie asks. 

Richie hums. “It’s just a big step for her. She knows she wants to do it. It’s just scary.”

Eddie can imagine. “Shocked she asked you to talk her down, though.”

“Fuck you, I’m a great crisis counsellor,” Richie says with a laugh. “Remember how many asthma attacks I talked you down from?”

“That was my fucking inhaler.”

“No it wasn’t, because there was nothing in there! All I had to do was be so annoying that you caught your breath just to yell at me.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. Honestly, he could be right. “Get ready for the wedding, dickwad.”

“I am ready! Look at me, this is the best I’ve looked in fifteen years.” He spreads his arms wide. 

Eddie wets his lips as he looks, helplessly, up and down Richie’s body; his broad shoulders and surprisingly trim waist and handsome fucking face. God, he looks good. “There was only room for improvement,” he says, and hopes to god his voice doesn’t sound as rough as it feels. 

“Dick,” Richie says good-naturedly. “Seriously, though, I’m all set. I’m just staying in the AC for as long as I can. Is it still balls-to-the-walls hot out there?”

“Yeah. Gross as hell.”

“I’m going to poach in here,” Richie sighs. “The things I do for friendship.”

“This is right up there with murdering an evil clown to save your friends, for sure,” Eddie says. 

Richie grins. “Think that should be number one?”

Eddie scoffs. “Your bowtie is crooked.”

“Is it?” Richie turns to the mirror and squints. “I don’t know how to tie these things, to be honest. I’ve never worn a bowtie in my life.”

“I’m truly shocked,” Eddie says, stepping forward as Richie tugs at it ineffectually. “Stay still, moron.”

“Work your magic, baby,” Richie says, standing at attention. 

“You’re really obnoxious,” Eddie tells him, and reaches out to pull his bowtie straight.

There’s a moment of breathless silence between them. Richie smells like coffee and aftershave. Eddie bites his tongue, feeling the warmth of Richie’s skin through layers of fabric. Richie tips his head down, and Eddie tips his head up; their eyes meet, just for a second. Eddie feels it like the shock of a livewire. 

“Hey, Richie? Ceremony’s gonna start in a second.” Mike is poking his head through the door, now similarly dressed in a tux. “Oh, hey Eddie. Shouldn’t you be, like. In the crowd?”

“Fuck,” Eddie says. “Fuck, is it starting?”

“Only kind of,” Mike says with a reassuring smile. 

“This is your fault, you fucker,” Eddie tells Richie, and then turns and power-walks back outside. The music has already started; everyone is sitting very solemnly, waiting. “_Shit_,” he whispers, and tries to walk silently down the aisle back to his seat. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, the groom,” Richie’s voice calls from behind him. Everyone turns to look as Eddie stumbles over uneven sand into an empty seat at the end of a row. 

“Shut the fuck up, Richie,” Eddie snaps back, and then winces when a nearby mother covers her child’s ears. Oops. 

The crowd chuckles nonetheless. Eddie turns around and shoots Richie the finger—he gives Eddie a thumbs-up and a grin from the back of the chairs. God, Eddie fucking hates him. 

And then Ben comes out, and Richie swoops in to give him a bone-crushing hug, beaming, and Eddie can see his lips move—he thinks Richie says something like, _You deserve this._ He doesn’t know for sure, but he knows it’s something Richie would say. Easy as anything. As if it's just the plain fucking truth. 

_God,_ Eddie thinks, heart squeezing. _I fucking love him._


	2. Chapter 2

Bev’s main stipulation for getting married was that she wanted to walk herself down the aisle. 

Eddie can understand that, honestly. Her father is dead, but he was a fucking bastard anyway, and her ex-husband wasn’t a lot better. Eddie can understand her wanting to get away from the imagery of a man giving her away, or any kind of imagery surrounding belonging to a man in the first place. 

So the procession starts with Ben, who joins the officiant at the little dais set up in the sand next to the water, grinning bashfully as he takes his place under the simple archway set up on it. And then Richie and Mike walk down, and Eddie is momentarily distracted from the moment, eyes glued to Richie’s enormous smile. Richie meets his gaze and winks, and Eddie flushes and rolls his eyes. 

And then Bev appears, and she’s absolutely radiant. Her hair is a cloud of beautiful red curls, and her dress is long and light and flowy, and her eyes are shining from her freckled face. Her mouth is pursed in a restrained smile at first, but then she looks at Ben at the end of the aisle and it breaks out into a grin. Her fingers squeeze tight around her bouquet of white and blue flowers, and she steps forward. 

And this, of course, is where the downside to walking down the aisle alone comes in. She’s about halfway down—just a few steps in front of Eddie, having flashed him a dewy-eyed smile as she passed by, and everyone is watching her, beaming at her. Her bare feet sink into the soft sand. The train of her dress trails behind her, billowing a little in the wind. It’s picturesque; she looks angelic. 

And then she steps on the dragging front hem of the skirt, and she stumbles forward with a muffled sound and a jerk—she flings out a hand to break her fall, but there’s a ripping sound, and her entire bouquet ends up crushed underhand in the sand. Bev makes a sound, picking herself up and stumbling again, her dress pooled underfoot. Eddie’s heart stops. 

Everyone is terribly, stupidly quiet. Even the music seems to have gotten quieter. Bev manages to right herself, but her face is scarlet. The carefree, beatific smile of before is gone, replaced with shocked horror and humiliation. The entire crowd is staring at her, no one knowing what to say or do. Eddie’s hand is outstretched, reaching for her, and he doesn’t remember moving—he’s rooted to the spot. 

And then, out of the silence, Richie says, “Hell yeah, Bev! Stomp on tradition! Crush the patriarchy!”

There’s another moment of stunned silence, and then the crowd bursts into easy laughter, and Bev grins, still frazzled and sandy and windswept but grateful and happy. 

A second later, Richie is stepping off the dais towards her, reaching out his hand, and Eddie stares at him, lips parting automatically to yell at him. _Don’t you fucking dare,_ he almost says, _she doesn’t want to be led. She wants to do it herself._

But it’s not her hand that he’s reaching for, he realizes as Richie steps in close. Instead, he’s taking the crushed bouquet from her white-knuckled grip, so that she can use both hands to pick up the front of her skirt, which has a tear in it six inches above the hem. Richie leans in, and presses a kiss to her forehead. Eddie is close enough to hear him murmur, “You look stunning.”

Bev’s eyes shine, and she whispers, “Thank you.”

Richie walks back to the dais on quick, self-assured steps, and Eddie watches him go with his heart in his throat. The man’s a goddamn idiot, but god, if he isn’t also fucking wonderful. All of Eddie’s childhood, Richie poked fun at him and his height and his fussiness and his babyish face, but he was also always the first one to tell Eddie to forget about anything Henry Bowers or his gang said to him. He was always the first to tell Eddie he could do anything he wanted to, the first one to cheer Eddie on when he was doing something big and brave. If Eddie was ever scared or embarrassed or angry, Richie was there, cracking jokes and telling Eddie he wouldn’t be friends with him if he wasn’t the coolest loser in Derry. 

Eddie knows he should be watching Bev, or at least Ben, should be watching his best friends on their big day, but his eyes are stuck on Richie, who _is_ looking at Bev, who is beaming like Bev is his fucking daughter and he couldn’t be more proud of his little girl. Eddie’s chest aches. 

“Ben,” Richie stage whispers, as Bev approaches. “Be a gentleman and rip your tux to match.”

Ben chuckles, along with the rest of the crowd. “It’s a rental,” he says, soft but loud enough for most of the small crowd to hear.

“You can afford it,” Richie tells him. 

“Shut it, Tozier,” Bev says, and her voice is fond. Everyone in the crowd is grinning. Richie’s eyes are suspiciously bright. 

The ceremony isn’t long, but it’s beautiful and heartfelt and touching. Eddie can’t stop smiling, watching two of his best friends make promises to each other that he knows they fully intend to keep. Bev is radiant, and Ben looks almost shocked by his own happiness. It’s really sweet, even to Eddie, the most cynical bastard on earth. 

And then his gaze is drawn back, magnetically, to Richie face at Bev’s side as she recites her vows, and he’s _weeping_. He’s absolutely weeping. There are tears running down his blotchy cheeks and his glasses are all foggy and he’s sniffling and wiping his nose on the expensive sleeve of his tux. It’s fantastic—Eddie gets his phone out to snap a picture of him. 

As if he can sense it, Richie’s eyes meet his, and Eddie grins and makes a crybaby face at him, fists to his cheeks. Richie’s chest jumps in a laugh, and he shoots Eddie a surreptitious bird. The smile they share afterwards, though, is soft and fond. Eddie isn’t a wedding crier, but he understands. He does. He’ll rib Richie for it, but they both know this _is_ something worth shedding happy tears over. 

Bev and Ben exchange rings, and they kiss, and it’s lovely. Eddie claps and cheers and whoops as they’re pronounced husband and wife, and then run down the aisle together. And then Ben catches her around the waist, and scoops her up into his arms, and carries her, shrieking, all the way to the ocean to dump her into the water. She laughs, and screams, and drags him down with her. And Eddie remembers them smiling at each other in the Quarry, where all of this had its first real start. And he thinks it’s kind of poetic. 

A shoulder bumps against his, and Eddie turns and sees Richie standing there, grinning. “Hey,” Eddie says. “Nice job up there.”

“All in a day’s work,” Richie says, chest puffing out proudly. 

“I meant the part where you got snot all over everything.”

“Fuck you,” Richie says cheerfully. 

He wraps an arm around Eddie’s waist, and for a moment Eddie’s heart stops, because his hold is so tight, so warm, so perfectly fitted to him. It makes him think, _maybe—_

And then Richie mimes picking Eddie up, bridal style, as Ben had just a minute ago, and Eddie yelps, and smacks him hard over the head. Richie laughs, ducking away and then coming back, locking his arm around Eddie’s neck and dragging him a step closer to the water. Eddie makes a muffled sound and says, “Rich, I swear to fucking god, if you throw me in the water—”

“Come on, Eds, it’s romantic!” Richie says, arms tightening around him but not really resisting his struggling that much. 

“I’ll kill you,” Eddie threatens. 

Richie laughs, and then lets him go. “I should go,” he says. “Bev’s supposed to get pictures now but she looks like a half-drowned kitten. Goddammit, Ben.”

“Go, Knight in Shining Armour.” Eddie shoves him towards them. “Go bother someone else.”

“You’ll always be my favourite person to bother,” Richie says, simpering. 

“It’s a fact that haunts me daily,” Eddie tells him. 

Richie laughs, walks backwards as he moves away so that he can blow Eddie an obnoxious kiss. It’s always been easy to make Richie laugh. Eddie’s always cherished the ability anyway. 

He thinks about a bit in Bev and Ben’s vows—_for better, for worse; for richer or poorer; in sickness and in health; through laughter and tears._ He watches Richie go, his eyes still red-rimmed behind his glasses, and sighs. 

God, weddings make him sappy as shit.

&

At the wedding reception, Eddie joins the wedding party at the long head table along with the other Losers and any plus-ones. Bill is there with his wife, Mike’s brought a girl he’s been seeing. There’s an empty seat at the end of the table, with the name _Stan Uris_ on the little square of paper on top of the plate and a full glass of champagne in front of it.

And then there’s Eddie and Richie, dateless and a little pathetic, seated next to each other on Bev’s right. 

“I thought we said no Derry talk,” Eddie gripes, leaning forward to glare at Mike, who is telling Bill’s wife a story about Eddie falling into the creek in 1989 on Ben’s other side.

Mike ignores him and continues to tell the story with a broad grin. 

“I think that rule was clown-specific,” Richie says, leaning in to murmur it in Eddie’s ear so that no one’s dates hear him. 

Eddie thinks the close proximity is overkill, and shivers at the feeling of Richie’s breath on his cheek. “That clown was just the start of my Derry-related trauma.”

Richie laughs, clapping a hand on Eddie’s knee and squeezing. “And yet you turned out so well-adjusted!”

“Why did I get seated next to you?” Eddie complains, pushing Richie’s hand off him. He knows that if he left it, it would just inch up his leg until Eddie combusted. 

“Because no one else wants to sit with us,” Richie says, and grins. 

“_I_ don’t want to sit with us,” Eddie says, settling back in his seat. He’s at the end of the table, right next to Stan’s seat, and no one can hear him without him yelling. “Stan doesn’t even want to sit with us.”

“Stan fucking _loves_ sitting with us.” Richie reaches around Eddie to pat the back of Stan’s chair, and then leaves his arm along the back of Eddie’s. Eddie shifts his shoulderblades against it, but it doesn’t budge. “Anyway, we had some good times in Derry, yeah?”

“Name one,” Eddie says, just to be contrary.

Richie uses his free hand to spear salad on his fork, looking thoughtful. “What about that time your mom wouldn’t let you come to our New Years sleepover because you had ‘mumps’ and we all snuck in through your window to sleep on your floor?”

“I threw up from drinking too much cream soda,” Eddie says, but a tendril of warmth wraps around his chest at the memory. “Now that I think about it, I probably just had hives, huh? From that weird cream she made me put on.”

Richie laughs. “Well, it definitely wasn’t mumps, especially considering you had every vaccination known to man in the 80s.”

“This is a terrible example of a good memory,” Eddie says. “Now I’m just thinking about a) throwing up, b) having a whole-body rash, and c) my mom.”

“It’s a good memory for me,” Richie says, smiling. “You cried when I climbed through your window.”

“I did not.”

“You teared up—don’t lie. And we played board games until you got too mad to not yell. And you let me sleep in your bed with you and rub your stomach.”

Eddie flushes. Even then, Richie was always touching him, and Eddie was always pushing him off, except when he thought he could get away with letting it continue. He thought it was a creature comfort kind of thing, back then. God, he was queer. 

“Stan kept telling us about some bird thing, right up until we all fell asleep,” Richie continues, still smiling. “And no one cared, but it was nice hearing him talking.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and his heart squeezes. 

The server chooses that moment to bring their next course out, and Richie finally withdraws his arm from around Eddie’s shoulders to serve himself more food. Eddie releases the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. 

They get caught up in other conversations after that, leaning around each other to talk to people farther down the table, raising their voices to be heard, laughing and arguing. People keep telling embarrassing childhood stories, and Eddie joins them, talking about Bill wiping out in his bike and Richie humiliating himself in front of a girl at the arcade. 

“That’s not fair,” Richie says, grinning. “I was young and confused. And gay.”

He says it so easily, now. In the beginning, right after Derry, it was so hard for him. Eddie remembers—he’d say it loudly, too loudly, like it was a joke, but his face would be red, and his hands would be trembling. Now his shoulders are relaxed, and his voice is even. Around the Losers, at least, he’s comfortable. 

Eddie still hasn’t said anything at all. About himself. He’s not...he’s not there yet. He doesn’t even know what he’d _say_. He doesn’t know what words he’d use. It’s one thing to think about little, queer Eddie Kaspbrak, and another to think of himself right now, being in love with his best friend. And he already has so many fucking problems. Sometimes he doesn’t want to think about another label on top of all the other ones. 

Dinner ends, and cake is cut, and then music starts up, and the room dims. Ben takes Bev’s hand and tugs her, shyly, to the cleared space next to the speakers. 

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Richie says, leaning his chair back on two legs next to Eddie. 

“You gonna cry again, Tozier?” Eddie asks him. 

Richie laughs. “Nah, that was a one-time thing.”

“As if. You cried more than anyone else in the Losers Club, bar none.”

Richie clutches his chest. “That’s harsh, Eds. I was a sensitive kid.” He sniffs, and looks across the hall at Ben and Bev. “I’m just happy for them. They deserve this.”

Eddie hums his agreement. He really can’t argue with that. 

“Bev deserves to have someone as good as Ben love her. And Ben...I dunno. We have a lot in common.”

Eddie cuts a look at him, one eyebrow raised. 

Richie shrugs, folds his arms across his chest, and keeps watching Bev like he can’t look away. 

Eddie squints at him. “Hold on. Were you in love with Bev _too?_” 

“What?” Richie laughs. “God, no. Eds, I was gay, remember? The whole time.”

Eddie shrugs, and doesn’t meet his gaze. “There can be...exceptions.”

He can feel Richie’s eyes on him, and hopes the hall is dim enough that he can’t see Eddie’s pink fucking cheeks. “You think so?”

It’s the closest Eddie’s ever come to coming out of the closet. It’s almost guttingly terrifying. “Yeah, I guess,” he forces himself to say. He watches the happy couple dancing, tries to focus on Bev’s blissful smile, on Ben’s grin. 

There’s a pause, and then Richie says, “Were _you_ in love with Bev?”

It startles a laugh out of Eddie. “_No._” 

“Okay. Just checking.”

Eddie snorts, shakes his head. “Always thought she was great, though.” But no girls ever kept Eddie’s attention, even back then. God, that should have been a dead giveaway, huh. 

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Me too.” 

Girls never kept Eddie’s attention, but god, Richie did. He drove Eddie so crazy, since the very beginning, but Eddie still wanted to hang out with him all the time. And the amount of mental space Richie still takes up in Eddie’s mind every day, even now—it’s absurd. It’s _alarming._

The song winds down to an end. Richie shoots out of his chair so fast that it almost tips over backwards. “I gotta go ask Bevvy to dance.”

Eddie opens his mouth to ask if Richie’s sure he was never in love with her, and then remembers, with startling clarity, Myra telling him the proper order of wedding dances in preparation for their own. First the bride and groom’s first dance, and then—a father-daughter dance. Shit. 

The song is just ending as Richie walks onto the dance floor. Bev and Ben kiss, smiling, and when they part, Richie is there, waiting, hand outstretched. He bows a little, and Bev takes it with a laugh, lets him kiss her hand. He pulls her close, and then twirls her around, and her laughter rings through the hall. Ben watches them with a smile, and then walks off to pull an aging woman from a nearby table—his mother, Eddie assumes—to dance alongside them. 

Eddie’s more or less alone at the table, now, with Stan’s empty chair beside him and Richie’s, Bev’s and Ben’s on his other side. The other Losers and their guests are chatting on the other end, and Eddie knows he could join them, but for the moment he’s rooted to his seat, watching the dance floor. Bev is still laughing, her arms around Richie’s shoulders, and Richie is leaning in to talk in her ear, eyes bright. He’s not a good dancer, a little clumsy and gangly, but Bev doesn’t seem to care, stepping up onto his shoes in her bare feet. It’s sweet, and it makes Eddie feel warm, watching them. Richie looks completely in his element. 

He’s just so fucking cute. It makes Eddie mad. They’re in their forties. He’s a grown-ass adult. Richie shouldn’t be fucking cute, and Eddie shouldn’t be thinking that he is. It’s indecent. 

“Ed, come on!” Bill calls from down the table, and Eddie jerks out of his stupor. “Come join us, you don’t have to sit in that seat all night you know!”

Eddie blinks, and shoots them a grin. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He stumbles on his way to the other end of the table, eyes catching on Richie again as Bev laughs and Richie pretends to dip her, and then nearly drops her on the floor. He’s grinning, shoulders loose and smile wide. He looks good, with his bowtie crooked and his jacket gone and his sleeves pushed up to his elbows and his hair a little wild. But even more than that, he looks _happy_. 

Eddie’s been happy, too. Happier. Since Derry, and all the things that have happened since then. Things have been so much better. 

He could be happier. But everything also feels so tenuous, like it could all fall apart at any second. Eddie’s not sure he’ll ever be able to risk it. Not even for how badly his chest aches. It always fucking aches when Richie’s around, looking like the best thing that ever happened to him. 

Fucking wedding.


	3. Chapter 3

The worst part about weddings is that they always seem to be geared towards couples, as if, because the people getting married have found love, that means everyone else should have already, too. 

Eddie had been offered the chance to bring a plus-one. He’d already left Myra when the invitations went out, but he figured it was an obligatory thing, just to be polite. But still, he had considered it, briefly. Just...finding someone to bring along, just to _have someone_. To avoid ever being left alone and uncomfortable. 

He’d decided against it pretty quickly. For one thing, he didn’t really have any real friends, much less any close enough to bring to Florida for a wedding. And he hadn’t been on a date since, well. Myra. Also, it felt pathetic, needing to bring a date to a wedding just so that he had an escape route from talking to his _best friend_. And it felt ungenuine. He didn’t want to bring a woman, and he _didn’t_ want to bring a man. Because he’s a fucking coward, and because there’s only one man he’d be interested in bringing regardless. Which he can’t do. Because he’s a fucking coward. 

So he decided against it, definitively, and then regrets it the second every single other person at the head table gets up to slow dance with their significant other and leave him alone with Richie Tozier. 

“Well well well,” Richie says, slinging his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, sitting sprawled in his chair. “Looks like it’s just you and me again, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Again?” Eddie says with a scoff, shrugging his arm off. It settles, like before, on the back of his chair. “When has this ever happened before?”

“It’s always just you and me,” Richie says, shooting him a grin. “Neibolt? You and me versus the mutant Pomeranian?”

“That was not because everyone else decided to slow dance,” Eddie says. 

“Richie and Eddie against the world,” Richie says with a wistful sigh, ignoring him. “Remember when people used to say our names like that? RichieandEddie. As if we were one person.”

Eddie does. He always scowled, and he always liked it. “That’s because they were always yelling at us collectively. Because we were being obnoxious.”

“Obnoxious? Me? I don’t recall.” Richie laughs. “Anyway, now there’s just you and me left, so we better get used to that again.”

“Mike’s not married yet,” Eddie says, heart thudding a little too loudly. “And we’ve got Stan.”

“Mike’s the ideal husband. Someone’s gonna snap him up sooner rather than later. And Stan doesn’t contribute much to our snappy back-and-forth.”

“Are you saying I’m _not_ the ideal husband?” Eddie asks, almost meeting Richie’s eyes as he quirks an eyebrow at him. 

Richie grins back. “Eddie, you are so full of neuroses it’s a wonder anyone other than me can live with you.”

Eddie’s face goes warm. “Fuck off. I had college roommates and shit.” He doesn’t mention the wife. It’s not like that had ended well, or even been good while it was happening. 

“Yeah, and how much did they love you by the end of the year?” Richie asks. 

Eddie doesn’t answer. Most of them had hated him. But Eddie had hated them back, so. 

Richie laughs. “That’s what I thought.”

“It’s not like _you’ve_ ever lived with me.” 

“I grew up with you, which is worse,” Richie says. “And I came out of that still full of love for you, so I am obviously stronger than all of them.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You came out of that by forgetting I even existed.”

“Not possible. I knew, deep in my heart.” Richie scratches the back of Eddie’s head over the back of his chair. 

“Fuck off,” Eddie mutters, and this time he means it. He can’t handle this. He really can’t. 

“Anyway,” Richie says, voice light and cheerful. “My point is, we need to pair up. It’s our only defense against the happy couples in this room. And it’s clearly our fate.”

“No,” Eddie says. “I’m pairing up with Stan. Go find someone else.”

“There’s no one else for me but you, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Sometimes, Eddie really wishes Richie would just shut the fuck up. 

The slow dancers return. The music gets louder and more bass-heavy. More alcohol is consumed—not by Eddie, though, because he’s on medication, and Richie doesn’t drink either. Eddie thinks it might be for the same reason but he doesn’t ask. Eddie doesn’t dance, but Richie gets up occasionally to jump around with the crowd, with Bev and with Mike. Richie pulls him along with him once, and Eddie bitches at him the whole way, and then mostly just bobs along to the song and watches the others dance, suppressing a grin and trying to look miserable. Richie ruffles his hair obnoxiously, but lets him go back to the table when the song ends. 

And then, late into the night, they’re back at their table alone again as the dance winds down and another slow song comes on, and the couples return to the floor to lean against each other and sway. 

Richie watches them and sighs, drinking straight from a bottle of nonalcoholic sparkling wine. Eddie hums in agreement, without really knowing what he’s agreeing to. 

A long moment passes in silence, and then Richie says, out of fucking nowhere, “Dance with me.”

“Me?” Eddie scoffs. “Not a fucking chance.”

“Come on, Eds.” Richie looks at him with pleading eyes. “Dance with me.”

It makes Eddie’s heart kick against his ribs. “No. Find someone else to dance with.”

“I don’t want to.” Richie kicks the side of his leg gently. “Why won’t you dance with me?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Eddie lies. “You’re annoying. And I don’t like dancing.”

“Don’t be so homophobic,” Richie says, but light enough that Eddie knows he’s not serious.

Eddie snorts. “Stop bothering me.”

“Eds, I’m serious.” Richie nudges him with his toe. “We should dance. Everyone else is dancing and we look like the bad kind of losers.”

Eddie’s heart aches just at the thought of it, at the mental image of the two of them dancing among all the other happy couples on the dance floor. “Rich, if you’re making fun of me, or gearing up to make fun of me—”

“I’m not,” Richie says. “We should dance.”

Eddie turns to look at him. Richie’s smiling, a little, just one side of his mouth quirked up. His curls are a wild mess on top of his head, and his eyes shine in the dancing lights of the wedding hall. He still looks a little bit like he might be joking, as if he isn’t completely serious. But he also seems sincere. He’s looking at Eddie expectantly, and Eddie hates him so much. If he turns this into a joke, Eddie will kill him. 

If Eddie refuses, it’ll look worse than if he just goes along with it. But he still knows it’s a bad idea. 

“Fine,” he sighs, long-suffering. “But if you do something stupid I’m dropping you on the floor and leaving.”

A grin breaks out across Richie’s face, and for a second Eddie _really_ thinks the other shoe’s going to drop—thinks Richie’s going to say he wasn’t serious, is going to _laugh at him_—but then he just reaches for Eddie’s hand and stands up. “Allow me, handsome,” he says, and kisses the back of Eddie’s hand. 

It takes considerable effort for Eddie to roll his eyes convincingly. “That counts as stupid, asshole.”

Richie laughs and tugs him up out of his chair, and then along to the dance floor. No one looks at them, and Eddie is relieved. He’s terrified everything is showing on his face. 

“You get to be the woman, on account of your girlish hips,” Richie says, hands settling on Eddie’s waist. 

Eddie reaches up to put his hands on Richie’s shoulders, but only so that he can squeeze the sides of his neck hard enough that Richie winces. “I really can’t stand you, you know?”

“Harsh, Kaspbrak, harsh. I was just complimenting your figure. And what’s wrong with being a woman anyway, huh? That’s misogynistic.”

“I can literally just leave you here,” Eddie warns. 

“No, don’t.” Richie grips his waist tightly. “I want to dance with you.”

“Then stop being a dick,” Eddie says, instead of asking _why_. He shuffles in closer so that it’s harder for Richie to see his face. 

They sway there quietly for a few seconds, in between a dozen other dancing couples. Eddie’s hands are sweating, and he’s glad Richie won’t be able to tell through his shirt, but Eddie’s also worried he’s going to sweat right through _his_ shirt. It’s warm on the dance floor, and even more than that Eddie’s heart is beating too fast, and his stomach is turning anxiously. 

It’s just. It’s hard, doing this. He knew it would be, and it is. 

"Eddie, relax," Richie says with a soft laugh. "You're so tense I could bounce a quarter off you. Am I that bad at dancing?" 

"I'm fully aware that at any moment I'm at great risk of having my toes crushed. I saw you dancing with Bev." Eddie swallows thickly and tries to relax. 

"Just stand on my feet like she did. Then we'll almost be eye-to-eye." 

"I would rather die," Eddie tells him seriously. 

Richie huffs a laugh. But then he peers into Eddie's face, and before Eddie can tug himself away Richie is saying, "Hey. Is something wrong?"

Something is definitely wrong. Eddie's heart feels like it's breaking in his chest even though nothing is _happening_, nothing is ending, there's no reason for him to be feeling like this. But it's just so fucking hard to stand here and look at Richie as they dance, close together and touching like they're in love, and for the reality of it to be so out of reach. And for everything to be so impossibly hard to say. And to look at his best friend and think about how much he's changed, and how much he's stayed the same in all the best ways. 

After Derry, Eddie has been so determined. So much shit had gone down, but they’d all made it out, and Richie had come out and Eddie’s eyes had been opened, although he didn’t really acknowledge it for an entire year afterwards. But still. He’d gone back to New York, and he had felt like he was on fire. He’d talked to Myra, and filed for divorce, and moved out and started going to therapy and he’d resolved to be better. To be good enough. Richie is always so good, and so brave, and he always believes in Eddie and thinks that he can be brave, too. He’d resolved to live up to that, and to be _better_, so that one day he could do something about this ache in his chest. 

But now, it. It feels like he’s missed his chance. He took too long. 

Back then, just on the edge of leaving Derry, Eddie had felt like maybe they already had something. He hadn’t put his finger on it, hadn’t given it a name, but he’d felt it. He thought he had felt it. But now it feels like he was just kidding himself. Richie is the same as he’s always been, affectionate and good and Eddie’s best fucking friend. And they’re Richie and Eddie. But not like that. Maybe it could have been, but. He took too long. 

Eddie shakes his head, but his hands are clammy and he can feel his entire body trembling like a glass vase on the brink of shattering. 

“Eds? Hey, come on. Do you need to sit down?” Richie pulls him close, ducks his head to look at Eddie, voice steady and soft. 

Eddie shakes his head again, and leans in to press his forehead against Richie’s shoulder, swallowing hard. “Fuck off,” he says roughly. “I’m just tired.”

“I know what tired Eddie Kaspbrak is like, and this isn’t it,” Richie says, and Eddie _really_ wishes he could just pretend, for a second, not to know him so well. “Hey, look at me.”

“No,” Eddie says stubbornly, not moving. He can’t look at him. He doesn’t want to know what Richie will see if he does. 

But Richie is a stubborn fuck, too, and he pulls away, cups Eddie’s cheek gently with one big, square hand and holds onto it as he leans back to look down at him. Eddie averts his eyes, but doesn’t miss the open earnestness in Richie’s before he does. 

Richie’s thumb rubs over his cheek a little, and it makes Eddie weak in the knees. “Hey,” he says softly. “Is it the wedding?”

Eddie shrugs, tugs his face out of Richie’s hand and leans in again. They’re still swaying, and the goddamn song is still playing, is fucking _neverending_. 

“I’m sorry,” Richie murmurs. “I know things have been shit for you. With the divorce, and everything. This can’t be helping.”

Eddie lets out a small, sharp laugh. He hasn’t even thought about that. About his own failed sham of a marriage. Other than to think that Bev got her divorce and her happily ever after and he just stopped at the former. 

Richie’s hand lands on the back of his head, cups it gently. “I’m sorry.”

Eddie shakes his head. What’s he supposed to say to that? _It’s not me, it’s you?_

Richie thumbs over the tip of his ear, and it makes Eddie shiver. And then he leans in and down, breath warm on Eddie’s temple, and says, voice rough, “You’ll get there. We’ll find someone good for you.”

God. Fuck. Eddie has to take a moment just to _breathe_ through that, through the ache in his chest and the completely pathetic _I already have_ that bubbles up in his throat. He’s not going to go there. 

He swallows again, and clears his throat, and says, “I changed my mind. I do want to sit down.”

There’s a pause, and then Richie says, “Okay. Just a second, the song’s almost done.”

Eddie sighs, and gives in. Just…_gives in_, to the soreness in his chest and the tight knot of guilt and disappointment and anxiety in his stomach, to the knowledge that he’s going to fucking die like this, this pathetic person, this coward, having never said anything. He can’t. He can’t. Not when Richie still...still cares about him. Like this. He can’t lose that. 

God. Everything is always just so fucking hard. Especially slow-dancing with the person he’s desperately in love with and is too fucking scared to tell. 

“My hands are sweating,” he mutters, wiping them on Richie’s shirt. “I need my hand sanitizer.”

Richie coughs out a soft little laugh. “Eddie, truly, I love you so much. You’re just such a romantic.”

“I’m not trying to be romantic, you dumb fuck, I’m just dancing and having a very small breakdown and my hands are sweating.”

“Aw, Eds.” Richie’s hand squeezes at his waist. “I was gonna make a joke about liking you best when you’re having a breakdown but I feel like that hits a little too close to home.”

Eddie chokes on a laugh. It shakes some of the tension from his shoulders. “You’re a piece of shit, Tozier.”

“You know healthy coping and self care is what really gets me going, hot stuff,” Richie says, and his voice is uncommonly soft as he says it. 

The song peters out, and Eddie can’t tell if he’s more relieved or disappointed when Richie pulls away. 

“Come on,” he says, tugging on Eddie’s sweaty hand. “Let’s get your hand sanitizer and then go outside.”

“Outside?” Eddie says, pulling his hand out of Richie’s grip and wiping it on his slacks. “Why?”

“Because it’s quiet, and not full of happy people in love.” 

Eddie really can’t argue with that. 

They end up on the beach, a five-minute walk from the wedding hall, sitting in the sand with a bottle of sparkling wine between them. Neither of them are drunk, obviously, because there’s no alcohol content, but it helps anyway, somehow. Eddie has an overwhelming amount of experience with placebos, but somehow they always work on him anyway—the wine isn’t alcoholic, but it still helps him feel more relaxed, more loose-limbed and sleepy rather than bone-grindingly exhausted. He takes swigs straight from the bottle, because Richie’s doing it and Eddie isn’t fucking _scared_ of him. He’s not. 

A tiny, quiet voice in his head that sounds vaguely like 13-year-old Stan Uris whispers, _Maybe it’s because it’s the same as if you were kissing him, and you made peace with that thought a long time ago._

Eddie tells Stan to shut the fuck up. 

“So?” Richie says, sighing and looking out over the ocean. It’s a lot cooler out now, with the sun down and a breeze coming in off the water, but Richie looks comfortable in his tuxedo slacks and button-down. “What’s up?”

Eddie tugs the bottle out of his hands and takes a long drink, and really wishes he could be drunk right now. But his psychiatrist was very firm on that point. “Nothing’s up. I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask if you were fine,” Richie says, and then he’s quiet for a while. He sifts his hands through the sand, and Eddie struggles not to tell him about all the bacteria and parasites he can get from that. “Eds, I— You don’t have to talk about it, I’m not your fucking therapist, but at least don’t lie to me.”

Eddie blows out a slow breath. “I really am,” he says quietly. “I’m—fine. I’m not _great_, and maybe, like. Maybe I’ll never be great. Maybe I’m not, you know, destined for greatness.”

Richie scoffs a little, and doesn’t look at him. 

Eddie’s not sure whether he was just laughing or if he was being derisive, so he just shrugs past it. “Things could be better,” he says. “But it’s—whatever, you know? I’m dealing with shit. Everyone’s fucking dealing with shit, and I’m dealing with mine. Things are better than they have been, and that’s really, _really_ all I can fucking ask for.”

“It’s not, though.” Richie picks a rock or a shell or something from the sand and flings it into the water. “You can ask for more, Eds. You can ask for whatever you fucking want.”

_Not this_, Eddie wants to say. He sighs. “Just because I want something doesn’t mean I’ll magically get it, though. Even if it’s attainable, it takes fucking _work_ and _time_ and like. Medical fucking professionals, sometimes. And sometimes it’s _not_ attainable, and you just have to fucking deal with it.”

Richie’s quiet again, and Eddie thinks he really prefers when he’s being obnoxious. And then he huffs, and lifts his hand to drop it on Eddie’s knee, rubbing his thumb gently across the fabric of his pants. “Yeah, I guess. I just. I want you to be happy.”

Eddie has to clench his jaw against the wave of emotions those words send through him, swallowing back the pathetic sound that wells up in chest. “I am,” he croaks. “Kind of.”

Richie sighs softly, and his thumb keeps rubbing at Eddie’s knee. “You gonna tell me why you were having a breakdown at our friends’ wedding?”

“Nope,” Eddie says, and takes another long drink. 

Richie snorts and grabs the bottle from him to chug some down. “What am I supposed to do with you, Kaspbrak?”

“Nothing,” Eddie says, shifting his leg so that Richie’s hand falls from his knee. “Leave me alone.”

There’s a moment of tense silence, and Eddie winces. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just mean. Fuck. I’m seriously fine, Rich, I’m not your charity case. I know we’re, you know, friends and shit. But there’s nothing you can do. And I’m dealing with it. I’m getting better. Some things are just...fucking hard, okay?”

“I could help,” Richie says softly, digging his heels into the sand. 

“No you couldn’t.” Eddie swallows thickly. “But thanks, you know. For wanting to.”

Richie looks at him, finally, in the watery moonlight and the soft glow from the buildings behind them, and smiles. “‘Course,” he says. And then he picks up a handful of sand from the ground and tosses it directly into Eddie’s face. 

For a second, Eddie just sits there, staring at him in dumb shock. And then he bolts up, spitting sand out of his mouth, and snaps, “Richie, you dumb fuck! Why would you do that? I’m gonna get fucking MRSA or hookworms or something!”

Richie, for his part, stretches out on his back on the sand and laughs so hard his eyes get shiny. “I’m sorry!” he says in between guffaws. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to go into your face, there was a breeze or something.”

“Yes you fucking did, you asshole, I will literally kill you.” Eddie spits again, and then grabs the bottle from Richie’s hand and takes a huge mouthful, swishing it around his mouth and spitting it out. “Agh, I can feel it between my _teeth._” 

“I’m so sorry, I did not do that on purpose,” Richie laughs, sounding completely unrepentant. 

“If I get hospitalized I’m making sure you’re footing the fucking bill,” Eddie tells him, and tries to rinse out his mouth again. “I fucking hate you.”

Richie wheezes with laughter, and then wipes his eyes and pats the sand next to him, on the side where Eddie hasn’t spit a bunch of sandy sparkling wine. “Come sit back down, I won’t do it again. I promise you won’t get sick and die.”

“You better _hope_ I don’t,” Eddie says acerbically. But he’s grateful, honestly, for the distraction. He doesn’t want to talk about heavy shit anymore. He doesn’t want to talk about himself. 

He sits down on Richie’s other side, and hunches his shoulders against the breeze, chilly where he’s sweat through his shirt. It’s getting late. He’s tired, but he doesn’t want to go back to his hotel room. Being here, alone with Richie, is hard and stressful, but it’s better than being alone. Eddie realizes, suddenly, that he’s fucking _tired_ of being alone. He never liked being married, and moving out was a relief, but he’s just. He’s fucking lonely. 

Now he understands why Richie thought it might be the wedding that was setting him off. 

“So what about you?” he asks, before Richie can ask more probing questions. “What’s your qualifications for being in the Sad Bastards Club? I’m just assuming you are.”

Richie chuckles softly, and he picks at the seam of Eddie’s slacks. God, he won’t stop fucking _touching him._ “Well, I’m gay and a semi-public figure, so that fucking sucks.”

Eddie makes a vague sound. “Yeah,” he says, because it must. He knows Richie isn’t out to the public yet, and even though he’s not _wildly_ famous, Eddie still knows it’ll suck when and if he does come out. Eddie is gay-or-something and closeted and in love with his best friend, but at least he’s not famous at the same time. 

“And I’m single as fuck,” Richie says, fucking around with the sand again. He keeps picking it up and trickling it over Eddie’s pants, which is only bearable because it’s not his bare skin. “Like, all the time, for my entire life, with very few exceptions, and all of those were basically farces.”

Eddie hums, and closes a fist around the flare of jealousy that erupts in his chest at the thought of Richie being with someone else. He doesn’t get to do that. That’s shitty. “Think you’ll date?” he forces himself to ask. “If the opportunity arises? Even before you’re, you know, out to most people?”

Richie shrugs stiffly. “How the fuck am I supposed to meet people, even if I want to? Go to gay bars and get pictures of me leaked? Ask around for celebrities’ queer friends?”

Eddie hates how much he hates the thought of Richie doing those things. God, he’s such a bastard. 

“Whatever,” Richie mutters. “I _don’t_. Want to.”

“No?” Eddie says, and it’s fucking stupid, how it makes him hopeful and disappointed at the same time. 

“Nah,” Richie says. And then, “You know I’m committed to your mom.”

Eddie blinks, and then punches his arm as hard as he can, making Richie yelp and laugh. “You fucking moron. She’s _dead_.” 

“I know, I’m in mourning,” Richie says, giggling like he’s a fucking child. 

“Oh my god. Why do I even bother talking to you?” Eddie snatches the wine bottle back. “Are you sure this is nonalcoholic? Or are you always this idiotic, sober.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, still chuckling. He scoots closer to Eddie in the sand. “Hey. I know you’re not having a great time, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Eddie swallows thickly, and distracts himself by taking another long drink. It’s almost empty. “Yeah?” he says, pathetically. 

“‘Course,” Richie says. “I miss you, you know. When you’re gone.”

“I’m never gone,” Eddie says. “I’m at my apartment. Where I live.”

“You know what I mean. When you’re not with me.”

Eddie _strongly_ suspects Richie isn’t completely sober anymore. He doesn’t know when it happened, but Richie never says this shit. Never like this. “I miss you too,” he says anyway, because maybe Richie won’t remember it tomorrow, or something. “Until I’m with you again and remember how annoying you are.”

Richie laughs sharply, and slouches over to rest his head against Eddie’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Eds. You can be emotionally vulnerable with me.”

“I’d rather fucking die,” Eddie tells him, and he’s not even kidding that much. 

“Every day I love you so much,” Richie sighs fondly. 

Eddie’s heart clenches. Richie’s the only one who’s ever said that kind of thing to him, in that kind of voice. Did it even when they were kids. So easily, almost a joke but not quite. It’s what makes Eddie think, sometimes, that he might mean it in the way Eddie wants him to. 

But he’s never going to fucking ask. Because Richie’s his best friend, and Eddie’s only just getting the _start_ of his shit together, and he’s not even sure if he deserves something like that, much less that he’ll ever dare risking everything just on the _chance_ that he’ll get it. It’s not worth it, and it might _never_ be worth it. 

He lets his head tip to the side, to rest against Richie’s on his shoulder. He’s not going to fucking ask. But he’ll take this—he’ll take what he can get—while he still can. He closes his eyes, and listens to the soft ebb and flow of the sea, the sounds of the night. Soaks in the warmth of Richie solid and steady against him. It’s late, and he’s tired, and everything is so hard, but this is...surprisingly easy. Just sitting here, with Richie, next to the ocean. Not talking. Just listening. 

He’ll take this, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my fic notes: they talk and stuff  
eddie: is a sad bastard


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING for a fairly mild but definitely-there panic attack. stay safe!

Eddie wakes up five hours later in the sand, stiff and sore and itchy and warm, his head pillowed against a solid chest and an arm wrapped his shoulders, holding him close. Eddie groans, blinking groggily in the hazy grey pre-dawn, and then feels something tickle against his waist where his shirt has ridden up and bolts upright, looking around wildly. 

He’s on the fucking beach, next to Richie, who is shifting and waking up and settling his hand on Eddie’s lower back, breaths slow and deep. “Whazz—?” Richie mumbles thickly. 

Eddie’s head throbs, and his neck has a wicked crick in it. “Oh my god,” he says, looking around—at the ocean, at the lightening sky, at the dent in the sand where he and Richie spent the night, fucking _wrapped in each other’s arms_. “Holy shit, Rich, it’s fucking _morning_.” 

“Huh?” Richie says, thumb stroking along Eddie’s back absently. He pries his eyes open and looks around, glasses crooked on his face, and then laughs, deep and throaty. “Oh, shit. It’s _morning_.” 

“We slept on the _beach_,” Eddie says, feeling like sand has wormed its way into every single nook and cranny on his body. “What the _fuck_.” 

“Oh, god, we are not young anymore,” Richie says, sitting up slowly and stretching his back with a wince. “How did we even sleep that long out here? I feel kinda hungover.”

Eddie feels like he has to fucking _piss_, really fucking badly, and also take two showers, and also just. Get out of here, very quickly. Richie is sitting very close to him, soft and sleepy and rumpled, his skin rosy in the soft morning light, his hair a mess and his jaw stubbled. He let go of Eddie to stretch, but now his hand is settling back on his hip, like it belongs there, and it’s burning right through Eddie’s shirt. He swallows thickly and scrambles to his feet, shaking sand from his pants and the folds of his sleeves. “We should get back to the hotel,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket. No texts, but people were probably too drunk to check on them, and it’s too early for anyone to be awake yet. “Everyone’s going to wonder where the fuck we are.”

“Ughhhhh,” Richie groans, pushing up his glasses to rub his eyes. “Can’t we go back to sleep a little bit? The sand’s surprisingly comfortable.”

“_No_, Richie!” Eddie furiously scratches sand out of his hair. God, it’s _everywhere_. “Come on, fuck. Who the hell has the _keys?_” 

“I do,” Richie says, fishing them out of his pocket. “I grabbed them before we came out here, in case we wanted to go straight to the car after. I have your hotel key card too, by the way, it was on the table in the hall.”

“How did Bill get back to the hotel?” Eddie asks, snatching his key card from Richie’s hand and stuffing it in his pocket like it’s something embarrassing. 

“He probably got a cab, he and Audra were both drinking,” Richie says, rubbing his hands over his face. “Eds, relax, this is not an emergency. We just fell asleep on the beach. It’s only a tiny bit illegal.”

Eddie scoffs, digging his hand sanitizer from his pocket and drenching his hands in it. “I can’t believe this,” he mutters. 

But Richie’s right. This _isn’t_ a big deal, apart from the fact that he’s covered in sand and probably like. A million tiny parasites and shit. But if they have their shit and a way to get back to the hotel and nothing terrible has happened in their absence, then nothing’s really _wrong_. But he still feels jumpy and panicked and uncomfortable, and he thinks it might have something to do with the fact that he woke up in Richie’s arms and, despite it being uncomfortable and unsanitary, it was one of the best feelings in the world. _God._

“How did we even fall asleep?” Eddie mutters, picking up the empty sparkling wine bottle and squinting at it. “I wasn’t even drunk.”

“Probably because you hadn’t slept properly in like three days?” Richie says with a sleepy laugh, finally hauling himself upright. His tux is an absolute mess. “I hope someone knows where the rest of my clothes are.”

“Shit,” Eddie hisses. 

“I gotta return this,” Richie laughs, like it’s a fucking joke. “Whatever, I’m sure the wedding hall management is used to finding lost pieces of clothing. We’ll pick it up later.”

“That’s my best suit jacket,” Eddie says, starting towards the parking lot with hunched shoulders. “I can’t believe I just _left it—”_

“Well, it’s not like we were planning on spending the night out here,” Richie says, striding on long legs to catch up with him. “Or at least I didn’t. Did you plan this? Was this a seduction attempt?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie says, face hot, and power walks towards the car. 

The drive to the hotel is quiet and awkward—or at least Eddie is awkward, sitting stiffly in the passenger seat while Richie drives stick very poorly. The streets are quiet at six in the morning, and Eddie has trouble thinking about anything other than how badly he needs to piss and how itchy he is, but he manages to save a little brain space for overwhelming embarrassment at having fallen asleep with Richie on the beach. It’s just—it’s fucking _clichéd_, and stupid, and humiliatingly close to things he’s dreamed about. Had _honest to god_ dreams about. And now it’s real but in the worst possible way, because Richie’s just staring through the windshield, knuckles white on the steering wheel, not saying anything. 

God. He’s such an idiot. 

They reach Eddie’s room first, just down the hall from Richie’s, and Richie stands there with his hands in his pockets while Eddie fumbles with his key card to get the door open. 

“You good?” Richie asks, as Eddie finally gets the light to flicker green. “You need anything?”

“A shower,” Eddie says, running a hand through his hair. “Nah, I’m good. Uh, thanks.”

Richie gives him a soft grin. “Sure. Alright, I’ll just. Go fall into my bed.”

“Change your clothes first,” Eddie says, and then adds on a, “for the love of god,” because the first part comes out too soft, too domestic. 

Richie laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and then hurries into his room, because it’s getting too hard to pull himself away again. And that doesn’t bode well for the moment he has to leave again for New York. 

He heads straight for the shower, stripping off his clothes and turning the water to scalding, and he stays in there for as long as he can, scrubbing sand out from where sand shouldn’t be and letting water pour over his face, gritting his teeth. The soreness drains away, slowly, though not completely—sleeping on the ground is a _fucking_ terrible idea—but the misery sticks. God, he’s just. He’s exhausted, and he’s so done. He’s so tired of this. 

He catches a couple more hours of sleep, once he’s in clean clothes and on an actual bed. He still doesn’t feel particularly well-rested when he wakes up to the sound of someone knocking on his door, but it’s something. 

He groans and gets up, shuffles his feet into his slippers, and pulls open the door, expecting it to be housekeeping. 

It’s Bev, beaming and looking like she had a _wonderful_ morning. Eddie doesn’t want to know. 

“Rise and shine, Spaghetti Head,” Bev says, wrinkling her nose like she’s in on some sort of secret. “Where did _you_ disappear to last night?”

Eddie makes a vague noise and rubs his eyes, shaking off the last dregs of sleep. “Long story,” he sighs. 

Bev smiles knowingly. “Oh yeah? I’d love to hear it.” She bites her tongue coyly. “I noticed you and Richie snuck off early.”

Eddie’s face goes hot, but definitely not for the reason she obviously thinks. “No, Bev,” he says, as she tries to peek around him, like she expects to find Richie there. “Bev, seriously. It’s not like that. It’s _definitely_ not like that.”

Bev frowns, lips twisted to the side. “Oh.”

Eddie rubs a hand over his face, scratching at the stubble on his cheeks. God, everyone can tell, can’t they? He’s not subtle. “We fell asleep on the beach,” he admits. “He’s probably passed out in his room.”

“Oh,” Bev says again. “Um, okay. I thought— Sorry. That explains why you left some of your stuff. Ben and I brought it back with us.”

“Oh,” Eddie parrots back. “Thanks. Uh, yeah, we didn’t mean to...not come back. Sorry.”

“That’s alright.” Bev looks him up and down carefully. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says quickly. “Just tired and sore. Any idea what people are doing today?”

Bev shakes her head. “Ben and I are flying out later today to go to Maui. I think Bill and Audra are flying out today, too, she mentioned having to get back to work.”

Eddie scowls and nods. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Bev. I should let you get back to...your husband, or whatever.”

Bev still looks concerned, but she nods slowly. “Alright. I’m gonna go check on Richie, make sure he made it in okay. Did you want me to tell him anything?”

“What?” Eddie frowns. “No, uh. No thanks.”

“Okay.” Bev pats his cheek gently. “I’ll see you later, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Eddie nods, and retreats back into his room, slumping onto his bed. He doesn’t really know what Bev meant by all of that, but he has the feeling it doesn’t mean anything good for him.

He should say something. He should tell Richie…_something_, before someone else does. Before someone else tells the secret Eddie doesn’t even have the words for yet. But he fucking _can’t_. He can’t. He doesn’t know what the fuck to say, and even if he did, he’s too _fucking_ scared to say it. 

Eddie has been so brave already. He did so many brave things in Derry, and since Derry—so many things that nearly killed him, so many things he had to just grit his teeth and do, because not doing them would be worse. And things are good now, things are better, _he’s_ better, he’s the happiest he’s ever been and things are still fucking hard but he doesn’t know if he can _risk_ that. He doesn’t know if he has any brave things left in him.

&

The next time someone knocks on Eddie’s door, maybe half an hour later, he’s not sure he wants to open it anymore. “Who is it?” he asks, rummaging around in his luggage for clean pants, wearing just his boxers and the shirt he slept in.

“It’s me,” comes Richie’s muffled voice, and Eddie _really_ considers pretending not to be there, or to be in the bathroom or something. 

But that’s ridiculous, so he stands and goes to the door, carefully schools his face into something apathetic before opening it. “Hey,” he says evenly. 

Richie’s eyes flick down his body and back up, and then he grins. “Hey, Sleepy. Did you just wake up?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “No, Bev woke me up earlier.”

“Oh, me too.” Richie frowns and his brows pinch together, and Eddie’s heart drops, thinking she said something, thinking he knows— 

And then he just shakes his head and says, “But _I_ got dressed after that, you slob. What have you been _doing_ since then?” He hitches his eyebrows up, like he’s trying to make a dirty joke. 

“You’re wearing the same clothes you flew across the country in and you’re calling _me_ a slob?” Eddie scoffs, retreating to find his pants. They’re right at the top of his bag, as if to spite him, and he yanks them on. “What do you need?”

“Just came to watch you get dressed,” Richie says, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s like the less sexy cousin of a striptease.”

“I’m sure,” Eddie says, refusing to turn back to look at him as he pulls off his sleep shirt and pulls on the first clean shirt he sees. 

“You going golfing or to the office?” Richie asks. 

“Ha ha,” Eddie says. “As if I would do either of those things in jeans.”

“Oh, my _mistake_. You’re practically naked.”

Eddie rolls his eyes again, more dramatically. “What do you want, Rich?”

“So much, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says, voice light. “But mostly just came to ask if you wanted to get breakfast. Everyone else has eaten already.”

“You asked them all before you asked me?” Eddie says, ducking into the bathroom to flatten his wild bedhair. “Ouch, Rich.”

“Don’t be a dick. You wanna come or not?”

Eddie’s a coward, but he’s also really fucking weak, and never knows what the fuck he wants—if he wants to cling to Richie while he can, or if he wants to spare himself the pain and inevitable embarrassment. He sniffs and says, “Yeah, sure. Is there free breakfast here?”

“We missed it,” Richie says. “There’s a Waffle House right across the road though.”

“Oh, joy,” Eddie groans. “Every single Waffle House is a food safety violation lawsuit just waiting to happen.”

“You’re so cute when you’re talking about health codes, Eds,” Richie says. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

They’re seated at a booth fifteen minutes later, with Eddie watching them prepare their breakfasts with keen focus, and Richie watching him watch them fondly, like he misses Eddie being neurotic when he’s away. Eddie tries not to think about that. 

“You sleep okay?” Richie asks, kicking him under the table. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, never looking away from the waffle makers. Being able to see the cook make his food is both a blessing and a curse. Ignorance is, as they say, bliss. “You?”

“Like a little baby,” Richie says. “Like a little, sandy baby.”

Eddie snorts. “I told you to change your clothes.”

“I did! The sand wasn’t just in my clothes, Eds, it was in places you don’t even want to think about.”

“The beach was your idea,” Eddie says dryly. 

“I woke up in a sea of silt,” Richie says. “I thought I was back on the beach. It’s like I was shedding it in my sleep.”

“You should have taken a _shower_, like a grown-ass adult.” 

“Thank you, Eddie, I am incapable of doing anything without your specific instruction.”

“Sure seems like it sometimes,” Eddie grumbles, and watches a waitress bring him a chocolate chip waffle that takes up an entire plate. “Can’t wait to throw up in four to six hours.”

“Oh, stop whining,” Richie laughs, accepting his own waffle with relish. “I’m surprised you’re not, like, allergic to gluten or some shit.”

Eddie gives him a bland look across the sticky table he wiped down two minutes ago. “Richie, you grew up with me. You know exactly what I am and am not actually allergic to.”

“True.” Richie pours an insane amount of syrup over his waffle, looking contemplative. “Remember when your mom told us you were allergic to soda just because she didn’t want you to drink it?”

Eddie scowls. “I thought I was going to die that time Bill made me drink it on a dare. I was ready to be in the hospital for the entire weekend.”

Richie cackles. “This, of course, being before the cream soda debacle of 1990.”

Eddie pours syrup onto his waffle significantly more sparingly. “_You_ try finding out you’re not actually allergic to something and then being expected to not gorge on it at every opportunity.”

“Not at all similar to the trail mix debacle of 1990, two months later.”

Eddie winces. “Yeah, actually allergic to those.”

“I think I genuinely shit my pants that day,” Richie says solemnly. 

Eddie laughs out loud at the memory, despite it being overshadowed by the fact that he’d nearly died of anaphylactic shock. 

Richie grins in response, his eyes bright like making Eddie laugh was his goal all along. “Can’t believe you fell for that bullshit again as an adult.”

“Shut up, dickhead, my memories were erased by a fucking clown,” Eddie says cheerfully, taking his first bite of breakfast. It is, he will admit, sinfully good. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie says, as if that’s some tiny, insignificant detail. It makes Eddie snort into his mug of weak coffee. 

Richie looks fucking pleased with himself, and Eddie can’t find it in himself to be annoyed. 

The rest of breakfast is easy, like it always used to be easy, before Eddie fucked up and started acknowledging his feelings like an idiot. Richie cracks jokes, and Eddie deigns to laugh at them sometimes, which seems to make Richie’s morning every single time. So business as usual.

God, what business does Richie have looking like Eddie laughing at his dumbass jokes is a gift every fucking time? 

“So what are you doing for the rest of the day?” Richie asks as they finish off their coffees and the waitress leaves them their bill. 

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “I don’t really know. My flight’s not until tomorrow, but it looks like everyone’s leaving today already. Except Mike, I guess.”

“Mike’s shirking his Best Man Duties to go to a work event or something tonight. Which means I’m going through Bev and Ben’s wedding cards alone to make sure all their cash is somewhere safe, which means _you_, Eddie Spaghetti, are going through wedding cards _with_ me.”

Eddie gapes. “Me? Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one left, and because you’re best man’s best man,” Richie says, like that settles it. 

“That’s not even a fucking _thing_,” Eddie says. “I’m not doing that.”

Which means that he is, of course, doing that three hours later, sitting at a table in the hotel cafe with a pile of envelopes between him and Richie, opening each one to see if there’s money inside. 

“This is so fucking dumb,” Eddie says, getting a papercut almost immediately. 

“It’s not fair that I have to do these things alone,” Richie says imperiously, pulling a couple crisp bills out of a card. “People who didn’t come to the wedding sent their cards _here_. Why wouldn’t they just send them to Ben and Bev’s fucking address? Better yet, why didn’t they just send an e-transfer?”

“It is fair, because I’m _not in the wedding party_.” 

“I definitely saw you walk down the aisle yesterday,” Richie says with a grin. 

Eddie kicks him and gets another papercut. 

Richie sighs, ripping open a delicate white envelope. “Destination weddings, man. No fucking chance.”

“_No_ fucking chance,” Eddie agrees. 

Richie glances up at Eddie through his lashes. “You sound like you’ve thought about it.”

“After this shitshow?” Eddie says. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. Outdoor wedding? Not on my fucking life.”

Richie snorts. “I could have guessed that.”

“It suited Bev,” Eddie says, “but I would rather die.”

“Pit stains on your wedding day? Eddie Kaspbrak would never.”

Eddie scoffs. “I’d already have pit stains, but it wouldn’t be from being baked alive. I don’t need more reasons to be sweating my ass off.”

“Aww, a nervous groom. Cute.” Richie grins at him and makes a little note in his notebook where he’s adding up wedding gifts. “What _would_ your wedding be like?”

“I already had one,” Eddie reminds him. 

Richie shakes his head. “No, but. If you could choose. Eddie Kaspbrak’s ideal wedding.”

Eddie wants to ask how he knows that his first wedding was nothing like what he would have chosen for himself. But he figures he already knows. “I dunno,” he says, trying not to imagine it. That way lies madness. “Simple. Quick.”

“Shotgun wedding?” Richie asks, grinning. “Classy.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Eddie rolls his eyes. “I just don’t want to deal with all that classic wedding bullshit. Fucking...unity candles and shit. And dealing with obnoxious family members you don’t actually like. Maybe I’ll elope.”

“I think your spouse has to agree to that,” Richie laughs softly. 

“You said my ideal wedding,” Eddie says. “Not the wedding my hypothetical spouse and I can agree on.”

Richie shrugs, opens another envelope. “That’s true. And the ideal wedding should include the ideal spouse, I guess.”

Eddie snorts. “Trust me, my ideal spouse wouldn’t agree with me about shit.”

Richie glances up at him, and his mouth twitches. “Are you talking generally, or…?”

Shit. Eddie’s a dumbass. “No, I mean. I don’t want my spouse to be, like. The same kind of dumbass I was, just going along with shit—”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fair. What if your spouse wanted, like, a fancy fucking wedding, though? What if you married a Bev?”

“Still not in love with her,” Eddie tells him, mouth quirking to the side. 

Richie laughs. “No, I know, but like. _What if?_”

“Then he’d better fucking get over it,” Eddie says. “I’m not wasting all my money on that shit a second time, that’s just pure idiocy.”

He goes to pick up another envelope from the dwindling pile, and realizes belatedly that Richie isn’t moving or, in fact, doing anything other than staring directly at Eddie unblinkingly. Eddie stares back, uncomprehending, and then reviews what he just said. 

“Shit,” he says, blood running cold. “She. _She’d_ better—fuck.” Lying so blatantly feels even fucking worse. All he ever fucking does is lie. “They. Whatever.”

Richie won’t stop fucking _staring_ at him. “_He?_” 

Eddie’s stomach drops through the floor. He’s going to throw up. “I don’t know, Richie!” he says, and his panic is clear as fucking day in his voice. “I don’t fucking know!”

“You said he,” Richie says, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Eddie?”

Eddie is hot and then cold like he’s got the flu or like he really did get food poisoning from Waffle House, and there’s pressure crushing his chest, pressing out against his skull. God, _shit_. “Yeah, so fucking what?” he says, and then trips over his words before blurting, “I like men, maybe?”

And it comes out worse then vomit, it comes out bitter and sour and caustic, and he hates saying it so much, but it’s also such a fucking relief. The crushing pressure lessens, in a way Eddie sometimes thought it never would. He breathes a little easier, just for a moment, just for having said it. 

And all Richie fucking says is, “_Maybe?_” 

“I _do,_” Eddie says, throwing his hands in the air. “Okay? Are you happy? And I’ve had a shitty time realizing it, thanks for asking! I—I like men. Sometimes. Maybe all the time, I don’t fucking know. Are you satisfied?”

“_No?_” Richie says, loud and like it’s a question. He’s staring at Eddie so intensely it makes his face hot. “What the fuck, Eddie, I— You’re into dudes and I. I’m fucking _gay_ and I would have liked to _know_, asshole! It would have been really convenient to know! I was fucking terrified to come out, especially to _you_, and now you— _Eddie_. I thought I was the only one.”

Eddie’s throat closes up, and he swallows past it with difficulty, feeling fucking awful on so many levels. This is _not_ the way he expected to come out. God. “Well, no one fucking knows, except you now, and my fucking therapist,” he spits.

Richie’s eyes are wet, and for a second, that’s all Eddie can think about. Everything else sort of fades away, because Richie’s staring at him, and his eyes are wet, and he’s. He’s trembling, Eddie notices. His hands are shaking. And Eddie feels like he’s about to pass out. Richie’s staring at him and Eddie just fucking _came out to him_, and it’s so much. It’s too much. 

He stands up. “I’m taking a walk,” he says. “Do not follow me.”

The hotel doors whoosh open and then closed behind him. Eddie doesn’t turn around.

&

Eddie doesn’t walk far. His knees are a little shaky, and he doesn’t have anywhere to go besides. He just walks, head pounding and blood hurtling through his veins, ice cold and fiercely hot at the same time, and then he finds a bench on a little path through a depressingly small patch of grass and trees and he sits down on it, breath still coming too fast. The sun feels too bright and too hot, and every sound is jarring and grating, and Eddie feels like there’s a hand wrapped around his throat, and around his chest. He closes his eyes and takes some slow, deep breaths, the way his therapist Nancy taught him. His inner Stan Uris says, somewhat mockingly, _inhale peace, exhale chaos._ He doesn’t even know what that fucking means. But it seems to help, so he keeps doing it.

After a few minutes, he moves to lie down, so that his head is in the corner of the bench where a shadow falls across it. He probably looks crazy. He _is_ a little crazy. So he thinks that’s okay. He wishes, vaguely, that he had a wet wipe with him. These benches must be disgusting. 

_God_, he thinks. Everything is always so fucking hard, all the time. Why does no one ever talk about how hard everything is? Aren’t things supposed to get easier, as you get older? Does that not count if you had your childhood wiped from your memory for almost thirty years? This probably has something to do with the processing of trauma that Nancy’s always telling him about. 

Richie’s mad at him. Eddie rubs his hands over his face, and tries to grapple with that. Richie’s mad at him, and it feels like _shit_. And Eddie knows why he’s mad—he thinks he knows why—but he can’t stop thinking that it’s because Richie knows Eddie’s in love with him. That he figured it out, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Richie hates being cornered, and that’s what Eddie’s done to him, by not being able to get himself together, by not being able to swallow his own feelings. By being who he is, and the way he is. 

_You fucking idiot_, says his inner Stan. _Richie wouldn’t get mad about that_. 

_Yeah, I fucking know,_ Eddie snaps back, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling it anyway. 

He works on letting go of tension instead. Another Nancy-sanctioned effort. Eddie’s back and shoulders have been chronically fucked up for forty years because of all the tension he holds in his body, and he’s supposed to work on relaxing sometimes. Eddie is almost never relaxed. That’s why he’s on medication. 

Still, he tries. Continues taking deep breaths and trying to ease out the tension in his extremities, and then his limbs, and then his core. He has to start over four times before he even gets as far as his neck and shoulders. He doesn’t totally see the point of the exercise, but it helps him forget, for a second, about the panic creeping down his throat. Maybe that _is_ the point of the exercise. 

He thinks again, _Richie’s mad at me._ And then he concedes, _maybe I could have handled that better._

And he remembers the wide brightness of Richie’s eyes. And the look of terror when Eddie stood up to leave, so similar to the look of terror on Richie’s face when _he_ came out. Eddie sighs, and stands up. The sun doesn’t feel so glaringly bright. His stomach doesn’t feel so much like it’s on the brink of mutinying. He walks back to the hotel. 

Richie is, surprisingly, still sitting at the table in the cafe. Eddie sees him through the glass wall, before Richie sees _him_—he’s staring at the table, at the envelopes still at its centre, like they might hold the answers to everything. Eddie hopes he’s getting something out of it. 

He goes in through the main doors, and Richie looks up when he hears them open, blatantly hopeful. So that’s kind of nice. 

“Eddie,” he says, throat bobbing. 

“Look, Rich,” Eddie says, walking up to the table, hands in his pockets, ready to apologize. 

But Richie beats him to it. “Eds, I’m so sorry. Listen, I— I handled that so badly. I’m so sorry.” His voice comes out choked, and he swallows again. “I know it’s fucking…_terrifying_ to come out and be honest with someone and I was like, I was such an asshole about it, and I should have just let it go and let you do this how and when and _if_ you ever wanted to, but I didn’t, and I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to do that. Are you okay? I can back off if you want, I just wanted to, to apologize and make sure you’re okay.”

Eddie opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He closes it, frowns, sits down again. Runs a hand over his face. He feels tired, suddenly. Bone-achingly tired. “No, I. I’m fine. I’m sorry for, for lying to you and everyone else for so long.”

Richie blinks at him dumbly. “Dude, no,” he says, a little too loudly. Eddie hopes to god they’re not attracting attention. “You’re not lying. You weren’t lying. You just weren’t ready and that’s fucking _valid_. You tell people, if you _ever_ tell people, on your own watch.”

Eddie sighs, and shrugs. “No, I’m. I’m glad I’ve told...someone, at least. That’s not exactly how I envisioned doing it, or...in those words, or anything. But it feels good. For someone to know. It’s just fucking hard, like everything is fucking hard.”

“I know,” Richie says. “Seriously, Eds, I’m so sorry, but thank you for telling me, even if I was a dick about it. I’m glad to know.”

Eddie manages a small smile, kicks Richie under the table, like it’s an apology, or forgiveness, or both. It kind of is. “Just fucking sucks,” he says. “When you figure something out about yourself and still can’t do anything about it because you’re a fucking. _Mess_ and no one’s gonna be into that, man _or_ woman.”

Richie frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dude,” Eddie scoffs. “I’m so fucked up, don’t even pretend. You said it yourself, no one can live with me. Like, I’m working on getting better but I’m still a fucking disaster. No one _wants_ this. I’m all baggage.”

Richie immediately looks so thunderously angry that Eddie actually flinches back. “Eddie—”

“Don’t,” Eddie says quickly, heart in his throat. “Rich, don’t say anything. Forget I said that, okay? Can we just drop it? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Richie opens his mouth again, and Eddie holds out his hand desperately. “I’m serious, Rich. I’m cashing in on you being a dick to me by requesting we just drop it.”

Richie takes a deep breath, looks like he’s about to explode anyway, and then forcefully turns away to stare at the wall for a moment as he pulls himself together. The visible display of effort makes Eddie’s chest a little warm. “Fine,” Richie says finally, voice tight. “But if you think no one would fucking— _God_. Okay, I’m dropping it. But I’m pissed about it, okay?”

Eddie surprises himself by huffing out a laugh. This whole thing fucking sucks, but. Honestly, he’s kind of glad it happened. And maybe it sort of had to happen like this, even if he hates it. And he’s glad it’s Richie, maybe even just because no one else would have ever pried it out of him. And his chest still feels warm, at Richie’s outrage and at his difficulty in keeping his mouth shut. It feels good, in the midst of all this shit. 

His inner Stan says, fondly, _Losers stick up for each other._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter's late again, i'm not happy either


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another trigger warning for a panic attack! be careful out there.

Less than two hours after Eddie comes out for the first time in a hotel cafe, arguably to everyone within that cafe, he gets a knock on his hotel room door that is at last someone he is not dreading seeing. 

“Bill?” he says, frowning. “What are you still doing here, I thought you went to the airport hours ago.”

Bill grins, his duffel slung over his shoulder. “Oh, good, you’re still here. There’s a wicked storm on the west coast, apparently. Flight got cancelled. I’m here till tomorrow.”

Eddie stares at him. “What about Audra?”

“She has a charity thing in Atlanta in a couple days, she decided to just get a flight out there instead. I got the next flight to LA tomorrow morning.” Bill leans against Eddie’s doorframe and gives him a lazy smile. “You got room in here for one more?”

Eddie snorts, and then realizes he’s not kidding. “Bill, you’re a successful author. Just get another room.”

Bill shrugs. “And miss out on a Losers’ sleepover? Think of the nostalgia factor, Eds.”

“No,” Eddie says, mostly on instinct. “What about Richie? He’s still here, go sleep in his room.”

“His room’s already full,” Bill says. 

Eddie blinks at him, and then moves to stick his head out into the hall. Six or seven doors down, Bev and Ben are standing in front of Richie’s door, lugging suitcases. “What?” he says incredulously. 

“Layover in LA,” Bev calls, laughing. “Or at least that _was_ the plan.”

“Ours got cancelled, too,” Ben says with a rueful shrug. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie says, exasperated. “And you’re both going to sleep in _Richie’s room?_ Does he have more than one bed in there?”

He hears Richie’s laugh, though he can’t see him. “Night of my dreams!” he says. 

“We’re just leaving our luggage here,” Bev laughs. “We’re hoping Mike will let us crash with him, but he’s not home yet.”

“Why is everyone so reluctant to just get a hotel room?” Eddie demands. 

“Is Eddie not letting you sleep with him, Bill?” Richie asks, now poking his head into the hall, too. “That one never puts out.”

“He told me to sleep with you instead,” Bill says, grinning. 

“_Edward,_” Richie says, scandalized, and Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“So?” Bev says, cocking her hip. She’s dressed in travel clothes—leggings, a slouchy top, sneakers. She’s supposed to be on her way to Hawai’i right now, but she doesn’t look all that disappointed. “One last Losers’ Party for the road?”

Everyone sort of looks at each other, a familiar tension—a familiar excitement—rising in the hotel hallway. Eddie presses his lips together. “Well where the fuck is Mike?” he says, breaking the silence. 

Richie grins ear to ear. “Don’t let Eddie get ahold of the cream soda.”

Bev whoops. Ben grins. Bill’s eyes are full of so much open fondness it makes Eddie’s chest ache a little. He misses Stan with a fresh, sudden fierceness. 

“Everyone call Mike until he’s forced to come back,” Bill says, sliding his phone out of his pocket. “We’re having a beach party.”

And by the time the sun is setting over the Florida coast, that’s what they’re doing. Mike has been pulled away from his work event, and the lot of them have gathered on the beach around a somewhat pathetic bonfire, sitting on driftwood and rickety lawn chairs that are sinking into the sand. The night is cool, and the fire is warm where Eddie’s pulled his chair close to it, and the Losers are loud around him, telling raucous stories, drinking lukewarm bottles of beer. Richie is doing a bad impression of his own comedy routine, and everyone is in stitches. 

“You’re impersonating yourself, dipshit,” Eddie says, biting back a grin as he picks at the label on an empty bottle. “Why does your Voice of _yourself_ sound nothing like you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Richie says, shooting him a broad smile across the bonfire, face glowing orange, the light glinting off his glasses. “I’m impersonating famous comedian Richard Trashmouth Tozier.”

“Oh, that idiot?” Bill teases. 

“Yeah, hate him,” Richie says with a laugh. “Straight as fuck.”

“Disgusting,” Mike offers. Richie nods his approval. 

“I dunno, I’ve seen some of his newer stuff,” Ben says, wrinkling his nose. “He’s alright.”

“Aww, Benny,” Richie coos. 

“I kinda like him,” Bev says. “He’s worth a laugh or two.”

“Nah,” Eddie says. “His face is dumb.”

Richie cracks up like he’s made a hilarious joke. 

“Harsh, Eds,” Bev says. “It’s not Richie’s fault he got the worst glow-up.”

“It absolutely _is_ my fault, and by the way, Bevvie, I resent you for telling me I’d grow into my looks, because that was a fucking _lie,”_ Richie says, pointing at her accusingly. “Middle age is _not_ treating me well.”

“You’re contradicting yourself,” Mike points out. “If you’re saying you did it to yourself then you can’t blame Bev.”

“She saw the future,” Richie says, crossing his arms over his chest. “She should have been honest about me turning into a 40-year-old slob.”

“You could just, you know, make an effort to be less gross,” Eddie points out, glancing up at Richie through his lashes. He does not, of course, mention that he’s wildly attracted to Richie regardless, or that he cleaned up really fucking well for the wedding yesterday. 

Richie grins at him. “But Eddie, darling, then how would I get you to yell at me?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’d find a way.”

Richie blows him a kiss over the fire. Eddie almost dives out of his chair to avoid it. It’s stupid, and juvenile, and embarrassing. 

It feels good. 

The night drags on. Bev goads Bill into playing the Bon Jovi song that everyone and their mothers were listening to the summer of ‘89 on his phone, and Mike orders a pizza to be delivered directly to the beach. They spend half an hour tracking down the poor kid delivering it, and their pizza is stone cold, so they heat it up over the fire, and the entire fucking box goes up in flames. 

“You morons,” Eddie says, chewing on slightly charred pizza dough. “I told you not to fucking try it.”

“You didn’t say it loud enough,” Richie says, nursing a minor burn on his thumb where he was holding the box. 

“I shouldn’t have had to, because we’re all fucking _adults.”_

“How dare you say that to Richie, whose actual face is in the dictionary under the word _manchild,”_ says Bill. 

“Did you know burnt food is actually carcinogenic?” Eddie says, throwing a crust at Bill, whose idea it was to heat the pizza up in the first place. “It can give you cancer, that’s a fact, you can look that up.”

“Eddie sounds like one of those middle-aged moms on Facebook whose divorced friend sent them an article they found,” Mike says.

“Eddie _is_ the divorced friend,” Richie says, grinning. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Never,” Richie says, sidling up to his chair and sitting down in the sand next to it. More quietly, he says, “Hey. Sorry for bringing up. The D-word.”

It takes Eddie a second to realize he means _divorce_, and not _dick._ God, he’s queer. “Richie, it’s not a bad word. It’s not going to send me into a spiral.”

Richie shrugs, leans his head against the arm of Eddie’s chair. Eddie scratches the top of his head automatically, like he’s a dog. “Just wanted to make sure. Today has been, ah. A roller coaster.”

Eddie snorts. “I’m fine. Go play with your friends.”

“Nah, I’m good here,” Richie says, and nudges his head up into Eddie’s hand. 

“I’m not delicate, Rich. I’m _fine.”_

“Yeah, I know. I just like hanging out with you.”

Eddie feels warm despite himself. He pushes at Richie’s head. “Go get me another piece of cancerous pizza. And then go bother other people.”

“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Richie accuses lightly. 

“There are four other people here,” Eddie says, looking around the fire at Mike and Bev laughing over something on Bev’s phone, and Ben and Bill trying to figure out how to construct a roasting spit out of driftwood. “I don’t want you to miss out on talking to them because you’re busy trying to coddle me.”

“I’m not coddling you, Eds,” Richie says, looking up at him, eyes warm. 

Eddie can’t look at him. God, sometimes he just wants to kiss the hell out of Richie. It’s awful. “Well, whatever you’re doing. We’ve seen lots of each other already. I’m robbing the others of your presence.”

Richie looks at him for a second, and then says, “I can’t tell if you’re being cute or if you’re really just trying to get rid of me.”

Eddie doesn’t really know, either. All he knows is that Richie being this close to him, and looking at him like he is, is bad news for Eddie’s heart. It’s too much, especially when Eddie _is,_ admittedly, still kind of sensitive from earlier. It makes his chest squeeze uncomfortably, makes his stomach turn. And he _does_ feel guilty. Eddie likes being with the Losers, likes just being _around_ them, but he’s not Richie. He’s not the life of the party, he isn’t full of stories to tell and jokes to crack. Eddie’s job is to talk shit and worry about people, and he’s okay with that. He gets what he needs just by being present. But Richie’s job is to be loud and make people laugh. Eddie is robbing the others of that by being...needy, or looking needy, or whatever.

“Go,” he says, but tacks on a smile, so that Richie knows he isn’t upset or anything. “Save Bill from falling into the fire pit, please. And bring me back that pizza.”

Richie looks at him for another moment, and then he sighs and says, “Yeah, okay. One cancerous pizza, coming right up.”

He holds onto the arm of Eddie’s chair to haul himself upright, and his fingers overlap with Eddie’s where he’s hanging onto it. For some stupid reason, the contact burns through Eddie’s hand and up his arm like fire. He has to swallow thickly and stare straight into the bonfire until he recovers. 

His pizza slice is delivered as requested, but then Richie retreats, and Ben stops by to chat with Eddie for a while, and then they’re joined by Bev while Mike and Bill help Richie make a mess of the bonfire. Richie mimes chucking their artifacts into the fire for a while, reenacting exactly what he thought should have happened until Mike laughs and throws shells at him to shut him up. 

The fire starts burning low, and everyone finds seats around the fire, their voices getting quieter as the hour gets later. And it’s nice. Eddie misses this comfortable closeness when he’s home. He has a few acquaintances in New York, guys from work he gets drinks with every now and then and people he sees at the gym regularly and the old lady down the hall who invites him over for coffee sometimes. And he sees Ben and Bev every few months, when they’re in the city. But he doesn’t have a lot of this—people who know him, people who are _comfortable_. People who will say shit about you without worrying about stepping on any toes. People who know how fucked up you are and want you around anyway. People who have gone through the same shit as you. He misses that. 

He sinks into it, lets it wash over him. The easy conversation, the soft laughter. The name-calling and gentle mocking. He doesn’t have to participate in it. It feels good just to be present for it. To be a part of it just by being here. He lets his eyes fall shut and just listens. 

When he opens them again, shaking off a half-doze, he finds Richie sitting across the bonfire from him, looking straight at him. He’s smiling softly, eyes warm, expression open and fond. He looks the way he looked yesterday, at the wedding, watching Bev come down the aisle—a mixture of raw affection and something kind of wistful. Eddie doesn’t know what he could have done to deserve that kind of look. Bev got married—all Eddie did was kind of fall asleep. 

He shakes his head a little, presses his lips together as he blinks, and Richie’s smile grows. Eddie looks away, heart in his throat. 

He catches Richie looking at him a few more times, in the hour before they all head back to the hotel. He always smiles when Eddie meets his eyes, but before that he always looks kind of sad. He never crosses the bonfire to talk to Eddie again, and Eddie wonders, at the back of his mind, if he did something wrong, telling Richie to talk to everyone else. Or if he’s just following instructions, the way he usually doesn’t. Or if—

If Eddie’s overthinking this, which he definitely is. Always is, where Richie’s involved. Like he’s a teenager all over again. 

Sometimes, Richie looks at Eddie like it hurts him. Eddie pretends not to see. He’s used to disappointing people, but usually he at least knows why. 

At the end of the night, everyone piles back into the rental car save Mike, who heads home on his own. Eddie slides into the back seat, and Richie squeezes in beside him. His hand falls onto Eddie’s knee and stays there for the entire ride, gripping just tight enough that Eddie can’t think of anything else. But Richie doesn’t say anything, or look at Eddie. Eddie pretends to fall asleep until they get back to the hotel. 

Ben and Bev end up getting their own room after all. Bill slides into Richie’s room wordlessly to share his bed. Eddie shouldn’t be jealous. He’s the one who told Bill he couldn’t sleep in _Eddie’s_ room. And it’s not like he’d survive sharing with Richie, either. He’s just a fucking idiot. He goes to bed without looking at either of them. 

He feels close to content, in spite of everything. He spent time with his friends, and he doesn’t think he fucked anything up. It was good. He feels good. It’s still hard, but the Losers have always been home for him. Richie most of all, and that’s—that’s harder than anything. But the group as a whole, too. He’ll be sad to see them go. But he feels good, knowing they’re there. For the first time in a while, he thinks about telling them everything. He thinks maybe, maybe he can be brave enough for that. He wants to be.

&

Despite the delays, Eddie and Richie are still the last two Losers to fly out of Florida.

Bev, Ben and Bill all leave in the early morning for the airport. Eddie drags himself out of bed to send them off, because he doesn’t know when he’ll see them next, and he’ll miss them, even if he’ll never say it. Bev knocks on Richie’s door until he gets up and kisses her cheek goodbye, and then kisses Bill’s and Ben’s cheeks too, grinning as they roll their eyes. And then they’re gone, and it’s just the two of them again, standing alone in the hotel hallway. 

They look at each other, just for a second. Richie’s eyes are tired, but strangely, intensely focussed. He looks at Eddie with intent, and opens his mouth. 

Eddie turns around and walks back into his room, pretending he didn’t see it. He knows it’s a dick move, but he leaves for the airport himself in three hours. He can’t handle whatever Richie was going to say. There are very few things that he _could_ handle right now. This entire trip has completely wiped him. 

So he sits in his hotel room, and packs all his shit, and then takes it all out and repacks it slightly different, and tries desperately not to think about going back to New York, and being alone. He’s only been in Florida for three days, so he shouldn’t have had time to get used to being surrounded with people who give a shit about him, but here he is. And Richie’s still just a couple of rooms down the hall, so Eddie shouldn’t miss him yet. But he does. 

He wants, desperately, to talk to him. It’s an instinct, still, somehow, from their childhood. Richie was always the only person who could bring him down from a freakout. The only person he could trust not to laugh when it really mattered. But now even the thought of seeing him is simultaneously terrifying. And Eddie is left wondering, again, why everything has to be so fucking hard all the time. 

He takes some deep breaths. Empties and repacks his toiletry bag. Pretends to watch some shitty hotel cable television while he picks apart the hard knot of dread and anxiety in his stomach. Starts worrying, pointlessly, about missing his flight several hours early. His greatest skill, after all, is displacement. And repression. And denial. All that Freudian shit, Eddie’s got it down pat. 

He calls a cab forty-five minutes earlier than he needs to, which is already an hour earlier than he _actually_ needs to. He goes over his entire hotel room three times to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. He washes his hands preemptively. He starts worrying about having to pee on the plane. He starts worrying about getting _hungry_ on the plane. He starts worrying about getting _sick_ on the plane. Eddie has all sorts of things he can worry about. And then he remembers to worry about missing his flight again. He picks up his bags. 

There’s a knock on his door. Eddie is developing a Pavlovian response to knocks on his door, and not in the good way. He opens it hesitantly. 

It’s Richie, because there’s no one else it could have possibly been. Eddie’s heart thumps painfully against his ribs. “Oh, hey,” he says. 

Eddie doesn’t want to see him. He’d already made up his mind, and everything. To give up and go home and get over this...thing. Once and for all. He’s been pathetic for long enough. It’s not fair for Richie to come knock on his door and look at him like he matters, and then catch sight of Eddie’s luggage and suddenly look as panicked as Eddie feels. 

“Wait,” Richie says. “You can’t go.”

Eddie blinks. “Uh,” he says. The cab is going to arrive in a minute. “I have to?”

Richie shakes his head, his hair and eyes both a little wild. “No, you can’t go until after I’ve said something.”

The knot in Eddie’s stomach tightens. He’s found out. Eddie is sure of it this time. He’s found out, and he’s pissed. Or, maybe not pissed, but he’s not happy. He’s not making a happy face. He looks scared and frustrated and. Maybe Bill told him, last night. Eddie shouldn’t have let them room together. Bill probably knew. Everyone probably knows. God, he’s an idiot. “What,” he says breathlessly. 

“I have to tell you,” Richie says stubbornly, like Eddie’s still protesting. If he wasn’t blocking the doorway, Eddie might try to push past him. “You can’t fucking go before I’ve told you. Eds. I—” He takes a deep breath. “I missed you.”

It’s not what Eddie expected him to say. Eddie’s not sure it’s what Richie expected to say, either. “Uh. Okay.”

“I miss you all the time,” Richie says, and Eddie’s chest fucking _aches_. “Even when I couldn’t remember you I think I missed you. And then I saw you again and I missed you even though you were right there. And I want to see you all the time.”

Eddie has to close his eyes against the pain of his heart cracking. He can’t handle this, right before he goes back to New York, where he’s going to be fucking alone forever. “You can’t say that to me, Rich,” he says roughly. 

“Why?” Richie demands. “Why can’t I say it?”

“It’s too much,” Eddie says. 

He opens his eyes again just in time to see Richie’s face crumple. “Fuck you, Eds,” he says, voice hoarse. “I threw up half an hour ago just thinking about this but I came to say it anyway, so. So let me be brave just this one time.”

And Eddie wants to shake his head, wants to refuse to listen, wants to retreat back into his room and close the door and never face this, but that one word, _brave_, stops him. Because isn’t that what he’s been wanting for himself this whole time? To be brave? He can’t take that away from Richie. He swallows hard, stands his ground. 

Richie’s throat bobs. “I’m. I miss you all the time and I’m not— You don’t have to say anything or say it’s okay or anything. So. I know this sounds bad, I’m fucking it up, I know you’ve escaped two situations where someone needs you too much and that’s, that’s not good, and I’m making it bad for you. I’m sorry, fuck.” He turns around abruptly, walks away four steps down the hall, and then turns back and returns to stand right in front of Eddie, even closer than before. “No, sorry, I said I was going to do it so I’m doing it. I’m. I just can’t let you leave again thinking no one could ever, that no one— That no one could _want_ you. That no one _does_ want you.” His voice cracks, and Eddie’s heart thunders in his ears, thuds so hard in his chest that he feels like _he’s_ going to throw up. He reconsiders closing the door, but before he can Richie says, “How much more clear can I fucking be, Eddie?”

Eddie stares at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

At this point, Richie has really worked himself up, prodding Eddie in the chest with one finger. He’s too close. “How much more clear can I fucking _be_, Eddie? I can never tell if you’re pretending not to know on purpose and pushing me off because you don’t want it or if you’re just fucking oblivious. And now you’re, you’re into guys so I’m like does he just fucking hate me? Am I repulsive? And then you say no one wants you and I’m just _fucking_ mad. Who do you— Do you think I’m fucking _joking?_” 

Eddie doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. His head is spinning, and nothing Richie is saying is making sense. “What are you talking about?”

“Me!” Richie says, too loudly for a hotel hallway. “Eddie, god, _me_. I was in love with you.” He takes a shuddery breath. “I’m _in_ love with you. Still.”

Eddie’s ears start ringing. _Holy fuck,_ he wants to say, but he can’t find his voice. _Holy fuck?_

“And I don’t know if it’s in a bad way,” Richie says in a rush. “I don’t know. It feels good, except for the part where it hurts so much, and I feel sick with it sometimes. It’s better from a distance, sometimes, but sometimes it’s worse, because I miss you. And I thought you fucking _knew_. I thought you must know. Because I have been in love with you since— I loved you when we were kids and then I forgot who you were but I feel like I still fucking loved you, and then I saw you again and I was right back in it.”

Eddie knows he must be gaping at him, but he feels oddly detached from his body, only really aware of his pulse thundering in his ears. His brain is crackling behind his eyes. 

Richie is unstoppable. “And all I ever do is fucking throw myself at you!” he says, voice low and harsh and frantic. His hands are gesticulating wildly. “It’s pathetic, honestly, it’s— But I can’t help it and I thought you _knew_. I fucking _tell you_, like. _Constantly.”_

Eddie manages to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to say, overwhelmed, “I didn’t think you _meant it.”_

Richie scoffs, short and ugly. “Well of course I’m not going to be fucking earnest about it, dude, I thought you were straight and otherwise definitely not into me!” His voice wobbles. “And anyway it doesn’t fucking matter, because I just. I wanted you to know that someone _does_ want you, every fucking day, and I know this is going to fucking ruin everything but I had to say it, okay. Someone does want you, even when it’s hard because you never fucking talk to me, you never text me, you’re my best friend and I’ve come to terms with it not being reciprocated but you could at least fucking _talk to me._ Because I miss you all the damn time.”

“Richie,” Eddie says desperately, cutting him off. Richie’s breathing hard, and Eddie feels like his hearts going to beat out of his chest, and not in a good way. “Shut the fuck up.” Richie stares at him, chest heaving, throat bobbing. Eddie stares back, and his vision is going a little dark around the edges. Everything feels like it’s spinning, and very loud, and pressing in on him. He can’t think. The only clear thought in his mind, wild and glaringly bright, is that there’s a taxi waiting for him outside and he’s going to miss his flight. He takes some quick, deep breaths, and doesn’t hold them for as long as he should. Richie’s gaze is terrifying him. “I need to go,” he says. 

Richie’s face falls so quickly and devastatingly that Eddie feels it like a physical blow. 

“I’m going to miss my flight,” he says, even though he’s _not._ He knows he’s not. But. “I. I need to think about this. I can’t fucking _think.”_

Richie takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m so fucking sorry. I just wanted you to know.”

Eddie nods. He’s not sure if he’s processed a single word that Richie’s said. His ears are ringing. “I have to go,” he says again. “Can you move?”

“Yeah.” Richie steps to the side, looking wrecked. “Eds. I’m sorry.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I’ll talk to you later,” he promises clumsily. “I’m, I’ll—” He runs out of words, and shakes his head again. He steps out of his room, into the hall, and turns towards the elevators. His chest squeezes. 

He walks away, every step a painful tug on his heart. 

He’s halfway to the fucking airport before his head clears enough that he realizes what he’s doing, what just _happened._ Richie, he— He said he loves him. He came to Eddie’s door and told him not to go and said he misses him and that he fucking _loves him._ That he’s _in_ love with him. It’s terrifying. Eddie’s a fucking mess. He wants this so badly that it scares him. He’s in therapy and on medication and he has a terrible track record with relationships and he’s only out to one fucking person.

Richie _loves him._ Him. Eddie Kaspbrak. Richie is the only fucking person in the world who really knows him, and he loves him. Has always loved him. Just like Eddie has always loved _him._ It hits Eddie like a tons of bricks. This is happening. It happened. Richie said he loves him, and Eddie—Eddie left him in his empty hotel room. 

“What the fuck am I doing?” he says, dumbstruck. 

The cab driver glances back at him in the rearview mirror. “You okay?” he asks suspiciously. 

Eddie takes three deep breaths. He still feels terrible. He feels like he’s going to throw up. “We need to turn around,” he says. “I forgot something.”

The cab driver rolls his eyes and starts to change lanes. 

Eddie gives himself ten minutes to panic. He gives himself ten minutes to worry about what the fuck he’s going to say, and where he’s going to look, and where he’s going to...to fucking stand. Just absolutely the dumbest shit, he lets himself worry about it. And then he strangles the feeling, and tucks it away, and layers over it with thick determination. He’s not going to run away from this. Stan fucking Uris said, “I lived my whole life afraid. Afraid of what would come next, afraid of what I might leave behind. Don’t.” Stan fucking Uris said, “If you find someone worth holding onto, never ever let them go.” And Eddie doesn’t plan to. 

He leaves his luggage in the lobby, and accidentally presses the wrong button in the elevator, his hands are shaking so bad. He freezes up when the doors open on the right floor, and has to force himself out of it, into the hall. He almost walks right past the open door of his own hotel room. 

Richie’s still inside, sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. His eyes are red. He’s clutching his phone, like he’s still thinking about making a call. Eddie swallows thickly. “Hey.”

Richie’s head snaps up. He looks at Eddie’s like he’s seeing a ghost. “Eddie,” he says breathlessly. “I— I thought you needed to think about it.”

“I did,” Eddie says. “For six months. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Richie laughs a little, an uncertain huff of breath. “Six months?”

“Yeah.” Eddie scrubs a hand over his face. “That’s when I told my therapist I’m in love with you.”

Richie’s eyes widen. He stares at Eddie like he’s expecting him to take it back. 

Eddie swallows. “Honestly, it’s more like she told me. Shockingly, I was kind of dense about it. Or just repressed.”

“Eddie?” Richie says, looking as overwhelmed as Eddie feels. 

Eddie shrugs, knowing it’s a ridiculous response but unable to do anything else. “Yeah,” he croaks.

“_Eddie?_” Richie repeats, with more feeling. 

“So,” Eddie says. “Just. There’s that. You, I. I’m in love with you. Too. Kind of, like. In the saddest, most pathetic way. I don’t have a speech. I don’t know how you did this, it’s terrifying.”

A dawning wonder is spreading across Richie’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “Now imagine me leaving immediately after.”

“Yeah. I’m really sorry, I had to go have a breakdown about it. I came back, though?” Eddie winces. 

A smile plays at the corner of Richie’s lips. “You came back,” he agrees. “I can’t believe this is happening. Am I dreaming? You’re in _love with me?”_

“God, you saying that out loud makes me want to throw up.” Eddie wipes sweat from his hairline. “I promise I’m happy about this. I’m just, I’m very. This is all really scary for some reason. You’re aware that I’m a fucking mess, right?”

“Eddie,” Richie says, voice soft. “I fucking know. Are _you_ aware that _I’m_ a mess?”

Eddie hadn’t really thought about it, honestly. “I guess,” he says. “What’s happening right now?”

“I don’t know,” Richie says. “I told you I’m in love with you and you left and then came back and told me _you’re_ in love with _me.”_

“Yeah.” God, this is awful. 

“Do you want to sit down?” Richie asks. 

Eddie nods, relieved. He was still worried, somewhere in his mind, about where to stand. He moves stiffly to sink into the chair at the desk. He’s already checked out of this room—someone’s going to come clean it at some point. They’re not supposed to be in here. 

Richie moves to the edge of the bed closest to him. He reaches out and lays a hand on Eddie’s knee and squeezes. It’s grounding, somehow. “Eddie,” he says, eyes shining. “Say it again.”

Eddie makes a rough sound that almost sounds like a laugh. “I’m in love with you.”

Richie closes his eyes, lips pressed together like he can barely handle it. “Since _when?”_

“I honestly don’t know.” Eddie sniffs. “A while.”

“You fucker,” Richie says, but he’s grinning now. His eyes are bright. “I thought you were never going to talk to me again.”

“Then why’d you say it?” Eddie asks. He was never going to say it. 

“I don’t know. It pissed me off that you didn’t know. I thought you already _knew.”_

“I didn’t.” Eddie swallows past the lump in his throat. “Sometimes, I thought, maybe— But I figured you couldn’t.”

“Oh, buddy,” Richie says. “I really fucking could.”

Eddie laughs again, and it comes out a little stronger this time. “If you say so,” he mutters. And then, “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Richie admits. “I’m still processing, this is blowing my fucking mind. Let me tell you, when I fantasized about this, it did _not_ go like this.”

Eddie bites his lip. “How _did_ it go?”

Richie cracks him a tentative smile, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to make jokes about this. “You were all hands, baby,” he says lightly. “In my dreams you’re all hands.”

Eddie smiles back, attempts an eyeroll. He stands up. 

Richie’s eyes follow him up, and widen as Eddie shuffles closer. “Oh, shit.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, gathering the last shreds of his courage. His turn to be brave, he guesses. He hopes Richie brushed his teeth. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“For real?” Richie says, staring. “Holy shit, Eds.”

“When I thought about it, there was always kissing,” Eddie says, and then instantly regrets it. He frowns. “So tell me if you want me to stop or something.”

“_Why would I tell you to stop.”_

Richie is just barely shorter than him, sitting on the hotel bed. Eddie nudges his knees apart and stands between them. Richie stares at him, lips parted, gaze awed. 

“Close your eyes,” Eddie says stiffly. 

“No,” Richie says, breathless. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, and then he leans in and kisses him. 

It’s one of the worst fucking kisses of Eddie’s life. He’s so nervous that he kind of misses, and the angle is weird, Richie’s face isn’t tipped up enough, and Eddie seems to have forgotten how to fucking _do this_. He doesn’t know where to put his hands and he doesn’t know how close to stand. 

But then Richie makes this _sound_, broken and desperate, and it lights a fire in Eddie stomach. Richie nudges his face up into the kiss, corrects the angle, and his hands fall to Eddie’s hips. Eddie gasps unconsciously and presses in closer, slides his fingers into Richie’s wild curls to hold him steady. He kisses him again, more firmly, and suddenly it’s a fucking _revelation._ “Oh,” Eddie breathes, and kisses him again, and again. Richie’s hands are tight on his hips, and his mouth is soft and warm and _god._ Eddie’s kissing him. It’s a fucking miracle. 

“God,” Richie whispers, like he can read Eddie’s mind. “Finally.”

Eddie can’t help but smile at that, and Richie kisses his teeth, and then laughs. That makes Eddie laugh too, and he pulls away to do so, and when he blinks his eyes open, just for a second, he sees Richie’s wet eyes, and his grin, perfectly happy. It feels like a punch to the gut, in the best way possible. 

“Come back here,” Richie says, trying to reel him back in. “I waited almost thirty years for this, I’m not fucking done.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and presses their mouths together again, insistent. Richie slides one hand up from his waist, under the hem of his shirt and over his skin, and Eddie shivers into it, kisses him a little harder, presses his teeth into Richie’s lips. Richie makes a muffled sound, and slides his palm over Eddie’s back, warm and indulgent, and Eddie _moans._ It’s embarrassing, but it seems to spur Richie on, makes him mutter a curse and pull Eddie in as close as he can get. Eddie goes willingly, holding onto him, sucking at his lower lip. God, he’s thought about this so much. It almost feels unreal. 

“Hey,” he says, kissing the corner of Richie’s mouth. “Lie down? I want to fucking. Do this like teenagers.”

“Holy shit, yes,” Richie says, leaning back, taking Eddie with him. Eddie crawls onto the mattress, straddling Richie’s hips at the edge of the bed. “Your mind, Eds. I thought about this so much at thirteen.”

“I never would have made out with you at thirteen,” Eddie mutters against his jaw. “You were such a little dick.”

“Not _that_ little,” Richie says, voice low, and Eddie laughs and kisses him again, on his mouth at first, biting, and then on the underside of his jaw, up towards his ear. Richie makes a pathetic sound. “I wanted to kiss you so bad,” Richie gasps, arching into every touch. His hands are still on Eddie’s back, tracing his spine, thumbing his ribs. 

“I never thought about it,” Eddie admits. “Not until, like. Literally six months ago.”

“Life’s a bitch,” Richie says, and then makes a babyish noise when Eddie sucks a little at his pulse. “Oh my _god.”_

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “God. Rich. I’m in love with you.”

“Fuck,” Richie says, and pulls him down to kiss him so long and hard that when they finally break apart they’re both panting, trying to catch their breath. Richie curls a hand into the hair at the back of Eddie’s head and pulls him down, presses their foreheads together, breathes hard against his mouth and then kisses him softly. 

“Well,” Eddie says, feeling a little dizzy with it. “So. This is happening.”

Richie laughs, and Eddie feels it against his mouth. “Fuck yeah.”

“_Fuck_ yeah,” Eddie says. 

There’s a brief pause, wherein Eddie seriously considers giving Richie a massive hickey, just because he can, and because he’s pictured it a hundred times. And because he _can._ God, it’s incredible. 

“So,” Richie says. “What now?”

Eddie groans. “I don’t fucking know,” he says, pressing his face into Richie’s neck. “I have to buy a new plane ticket, I guess.”

He can feel Richie’s grin in response. “Hell fucking yeah.”


	6. Chapter 6

There’s nothing Eddie hates more than airports.

They’re crowded and stressful and filthy and confusing and, worse than anything else, they symbolize either the beginning of something or the end of something, the former of which is nerve-wracking and uncomfortable, and the latter of which is, especially in this moment, fucking depressing. 

Eddie looks balefully at the airport signs as they approach it in the rental car and feels a knot of dread tighten in his stomach with every passing second. He’s not ready. He’s not fucking ready. 

It’s only been a couple of hours since all that...confession shit went down. Eddie managed to get another flight for the evening, but he still needs to show up to work tomorrow, and Richie still needs to go back to LA. They can’t just put their lives on hold. No matter how badly they want to. So now they’re both in the car, heading for the airport for Richie to catch his flight first, and then Eddie a couple hours later. And Eddie is staring out the windshield, heart in his throat, and Richie is unnaturally silent behind the wheel, and it just. It fucking sucks. Eddie hates it so much. 

Everything was so good, for a moment there. They were, they figured things out, and things were _so good_, finally, finally Eddie had one fucking good thing, and now they have to leave. It’s not fair, and it pisses Eddie off. Why does he never get to keep good things? 

He tries to breathe through it for a minute, in through his nose and out through his mouth, as quietly as he can while Richie navigates pre-rush hour traffic. He manages to keep it under control for about two more minutes, and then the driver behind them leans on their horn, and he snaps. 

“Rich, pull over here,” he says, jerking his thumb at the entrance to a parking lot. 

“We’re not parking, Eds,” Richie says, moving right past it. “We have to bring it back to the rental place.”

“_Rich,_” Eddie repeats. “Pull over right now.”

Richie’s gaze flicks over to him, and then he wordlessly signals and turns into the next lot. 

Neither of them say anything until they’re in a parking space at the back of the lot and the car has been turned off. Eddie is back to counting his breaths. Richie is just sitting there, waiting, pretending not to watch Eddie with concern. 

“I just,” Eddie says, voice coming out thin and tight. “I don’t fucking want to go back to New York.”

He glances up at Richie, and sees his eyes go all soft and sad. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “Eds—”

Eddie can’t handle the way Richie’s looking at him. “It’s just, it’s fucking— I don’t have any fucking friends out there and I hate my apartment and I hate never talking to anyone and it’s. It’s 2,800 miles away from Los Angeles, did you know that? 2,800 fucking miles. It’s a 3-hour time difference. It’s fucking stupid.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, quieter this time. “I know.”

Eddie sighs harshly, and props his elbows against his knees to cradle his face in his hands. God, he needs to shut up. He sounds like he’s losing his mind, and he _is_, but Richie doesn’t need to know that. “I just don’t want to go,” he mutters into his palms.

“I know,” Richie says. “Me neither.”

There’s a moment of stiff, unbearable silence, and then a warm hand slips over the top of Eddie’s thigh, just behind his elbow, and squeezes gently. Eddie takes a shuddering breath, and when he lets it out, some of the tension in his shoulders seeps out with it. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Richie says softly. “We can’t, I mean, it obviously fucking sucks that we’re. Almost 3,000 miles apart. But we can, we’ll call, we can video call, and text and shit, and I know it’s not the same but. And you can talk to the other Losers too, yeah? Message us in the group chat more. We’re all here for you.”

“Yeah, I know, I _know_, I just.” Eddie scrubs his hands over his face. “I just don’t want to go.”

“I know,” Richie says again, and then they sit there in silence for a minute, Richie’s hand on Eddie’s thigh, Eddie’s head in his hands. A plane roars in the distance. 

Eddie sighs, rubs a hand through his hair. He turns his head to the side, and looks at Richie, who’s staring through the windshield and looking as miserable as Eddie feels. Eddie swallows thickly and forces himself to say, “I’ll just fucking miss you.”

Richie’s eyes light up as he looks at him, lips pressed tight together. “Aw, babe,” he says, voice crackling. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, but it’s hard when he’s blinking so much because they’re fucking _burning_. God, this is humiliating. He shouldn’t have said anything. “Shut the fuck up,” he mutters. 

“Make me,” Richie says. 

Eddie looks at him. Richie looks back, eyes sad and happy and apologetic and impish at the same time. He’s so obnoxious, and Eddie fucking loves him. He launches himself across the gearshift. 

“What—!” Richie yelps, and then Eddie is crushing their mouths together, because he fucking _can_. Because he wants to and he can and because he’s not going to be able to kiss Richie in the airport so he’s just going to have to do it now, in the parking lot, in the car they’re supposed to be returning. 

Richie, for his part, gets on board _very_ quickly. He makes a shocked, laughing sort of sound against Eddie’s mouth, and then he’s pressing into it, hand at Eddie’s jaw, lips insistent. He makes a deeply satisfied sound as their mouths really slot together, and it travels right down Eddie’s spine, pools low in his stomach. Eddie groans, and curls a hand around Richie’s neck, holding him steady so he can kiss him more deeply, and then pulling it away again to struggle out of his sweater, because the car is off and the sun is shining through the windows and it’s fucking _hot_, and Richie is fucking hot, and Eddie is burning. 

“God,” Richie mutters against his mouth, sliding a palm down Eddie’s bare arm and back up, into the sleeve of his polo to reach as much skin as he can. Eddie shivers against it, presses in closer, opens his mouth against Richie’s because he’s drowning and the only way he can think to alleviate it is to feel _more_. He bites at Richie’s lip, and Richie inhales sharply, and Eddie licks into his open mouth, slick and determined. 

It makes Richie lose his mind, which is gratifying on so many levels. He acts like he never expected Eddie to ever kiss with tongue, making a startled noise that turns into a throaty moan and then reciprocating with an almost frenzied enthusiasm. Eddie smiles into it as best as he can, and then focuses on rubbing his palms over Richie’s broad chest and wide shoulders and warm sides. Richie attacks his mouth a little wildly, messy and too toothy, fingertips pressing into every inch of bare skin he can reach. 

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes as Richie rips his mouth away from his lips to start planting wet kisses along his jaw, down to his throat. Eddie’s entire body is on fire. In the best and worst way possible, he feels like he’s never been kissed before—he swears to god it’s never felt like _this_. He keeps gasping and swearing and making pitiful noises and it’s embarrassing as fuck, but Richie fucking _loves_ it, groaning against his throat every time, doing anything that elicits a reaction over and over. Eddie’s eyelids flutter, and he rolls his head back to give Richie better access, and prays to any existing deity that he doesn’t die of embarrassment from this later. 

Richie’s palm slides over his shoulder, down his chest, and then his fingers fumble at the buttons on Eddie’s shirt to tug his neckline down, to reveal more bare skin, and moving his mouth there to scrape his teeth just below his collarbone. 

“God, Rich,” Eddie hisses, arching into it, his fingers curled in Richie’s hair. “Don’t, don’t—”

Richie pulls back an inch, gaze flicking up. “Don’t?”

“Don’t _stop_,” Eddie says, tugging him back. 

Richie laughs, and kisses the hollow of his throat, and then lifts back up to press their mouths back together, like he can’t get enough. Or maybe Eddie’s projecting. _God,_ it’s so fucking good. 

It’s just. Eddie really doesn’t think anyone’s _ever_ been this into him. Maybe it’s just because it’s new or because they waited so long to do this but it’s fucking hot and intense and he can _feel_ the force of Richie’s desire, feels it burning into his skin and skipping down his spine and curling around his stomach, can feel it throbbing in his tongue and suffused through his chest. He feels it in the way Richie groans when Eddie pushes a hand under his shirt and the way Richie shifts restlessly in his seat and his harsh, laboured breaths and his stubborn unwillingness to pull away. Eddie’s never had this before, never like this. And maybe it’s because _he_ was never really into his partners or maybe it’s because he was gay the whole time or maybe it’s because it was never Richie but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking care why it’s like this, now—can only drink in the fact that it is, and he gets to have it, even just for a little while longer. 

There’s an anxiety in his throat, at the back of his skull, that tells him things will be different when they both go home. They’ll be clear across the country from each other and that’ll change things. Eddie won’t have a chance to keep this going. He doesn’t know what will happen. And Eddie never gets to keep good things. 

But he pushes it down. For now, he pushes it down. He can deal with that later. Right now, he’s biting at Richie’s mouth, tugging gently at his hair, licking behind his teeth, doing everything but climbing fully into Richie’s lap. And Richie is kissing him like he can’t stop himself, he’s kissing Eddie like he’s thought about it a _lot_. And Eddie’s never had that before, so he pays attention. 

He does have his limits, though, and when Richie’s hand slides up his thigh and dangerously close to his crotch Eddie jumps and huffs a laugh and pulls it away. There’s not a fucking chance he’s going to let this happen in a car in a parking lot a couple hours before he has to get on a plane. No matter how badly he wants it. 

Richie groans, and pulls away. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Eddie chases his mouth a little desperately, steals another hard kiss. He’s not ready yet. 

“Eds,” Richie huffs. “It’s fine. We have to— I have to go.”

“Fucking _airport_,” Eddie growls nonsensically. 

Richie laughs breathlessly, and presses his face into Eddie’s throat. “Yeah,” he says gruffly. “Okay. We can do this.”

Eddie really thinks he can’t. 

But he has to, so he does. They drop off the car, get a shuttle to the airport, print off their tickets, go through security. They get overpriced airport food and eat it at Richie’s gate, Eddie picking at his food sullenly while Richie makes jokes that fall flat. A voice over the speakers invites Zone 1 to start boarding. 

Richie glances at Eddie, who stares at the floor. They’re in public. Even if Eddie could get himself to kiss him, he wouldn’t be able to. Richie’s a public figure, and he isn’t out yet. Eddie forgot, until someone in line to get food kept sending him curious glances. Everything fucking sucks. 

Eddie jumps when a hand settles on his knee and squeezes. “I gotta go,” Richie says, voice low. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says gruffly. 

Richie looks at him searchingly. “Eddie,” he says quietly. “I love you so fucking much.”

It goes through Eddie like a shock. He swallows hard, chest squeezing. “Yeah,” he says thickly. “Me too.”

Richie smiles. “Okay,” he says bracingly, swaying in, and then reeling himself back. “I’ll talk to you later. Text me when you get home. Or call me. Whatever.”

Eddie nods. Panic wraps around his ribs. “See ya.”

Richie reaches out, and thumbs gently over his cheek, right over his scar, and then the corner of his mouth. Eddie has to close his eyes, breath shuddering in his chest. “Bye,” Richie says softly, and then gets up, takes a step away, and then comes back and wraps his arms around Eddie in a crushing hug, mouth pressed tight to the crook of Eddie’s neck. Eddie hugs him back desperately, quick and hard. 

And then he leaves. Eddie wants to throw up. 

By the time he’s walked to his own gate, his phone is pinging with a text. 

_Richie (5:36pm)_  
Meant to say something annoying so you’d miss me less  
I’ll try not to cheat on you with a hot flight attendant, even as the mile high club beckons me 

Eddie snorts, and rolls stinging eyes. _Suck my dick, Tozier,_ he types back shakily. 

_Richie (5:37pm)  
With pleasure, Eddie Spaghetti_

Eddie laughs, and sits down to wait.

&

It ends up being three months before Eddie and Richie are in the same city again.

Neither of them intend for it to be that way. Eddie looks at flight listings for LAX every fucking day. But Richie has shows and interviews and shit, and Eddie has work and therapy and midlife crises, and they keep putting it off another week, and another week. Sometimes, a mean voice in Eddie’s head wonders if Richie’s putting it off on purpose, to give himself more time because he’s changed his mind somehow. Sometimes, Eddie wonders if that’s what _he’s_ doing. 

But he tries not to listen. They call each other. And when they can’t call, they text. And Richie says gross sappy shit, and Eddie makes scathing remarks in response, and then he types out “love you” with fingers that still tremble. 

And then their texts change from _maybe next week?_ to _let’s just wait. I can’t come right now. I’m too busy._

And then it’s been three months, and Eddie is vibrating out of his skin in a fucking taxi, heart thudding in his throat. Airports are shit, and his cell phone battery is shit, and the weather is shit, a thousand fucking degrees, as if he wasn’t already sweating enough. His phone died just before he got off the plane, and he hasn’t had a minute to stop and charge it since. Richie’s last text burns behind his eyelids. _Sorry I can’t come pick you up. Probably not a good idea anyway._

His stupid fucking flight was delayed, so Richie doesn’t even know when to expect him. And then they got stuck in traffic because it’s rush hour and they’re in Los Angeles and Eddie is ready to scream. He has been very rude to his cab driver. Eddie’s going to have to leave him an enormous tip. 

And then he’s there. He knows he’s in the right place—he looked it up on Google Maps. He steps out onto the sidewalk. He pays the driver. 

He has to tell the dude at the front desk his name and get buzzed through just to get on the elevator. His heart crashes against his ribs. Stan tells him, _if you find someone worth holding onto, never ever let them go_. As if that’s even fucking applicable. 

He steps into the hallway on the fifth floor and drags his suitcase behind him. He knocks, shakily, on the door. 

It opens. Richie stands on the other side, dressed in ratty sweats and a t-shirt that says _Get Paid, Eat Ass_. He grins. “Hey, Eddie Spaghetti.”

The breath rushes from Eddie’s lungs. “Hey,” he says, voice hoarse. “Let me in, I need to fucking shower.”

Richie doesn’t move, looking Eddie up and down, lips pulled into a smile. “This is all you brought? Eds, you shock me.”

“All my stuff is getting delivered tomorrow,” Eddie says. “This is just for one night.”

“As I said, I’m shocked.” Richie reaches out, snags his suitcase. “Welcome to your new home, roomie.”

“I’ll fly back to New York,” Eddie threatens. “Let me in.”

“Just wait. I’m appreciating the view.” Richie looks at him and sighs. “You’re so rumpled. It’s so cute.”

“I’m a middle-aged man, Richie.”

“That young?” Richie says, mock surprised. “I would have guessed eighty at least.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Why are you so annoying immediately upon arrival?”

Richie grins. “I’m deflecting,” he says. “C’mere.”

Eddie bites his lip and doesn’t move. Richie reaches out again, grabs the front of his shirt, tugs him closer. “I’m gross,” Eddie protests. 

“I’m always gross,” Richie says. “This is why I couldn’t come pick you up from the airport.” And then he shuts up, finally, to lean in and kiss Eddie square on the mouth, as if they’re not still in the middle of his open doorway. 

Eddie sighs, and relaxes, and lets his jaw drop open. Something close to peace floods his body. 

“God,” Richie mutters against his lips, hands tight on Eddie’s waist. “I missed you so fucking much.”

Eddie smiles into it. “Well, you can’t get rid of me now. Do you know how much of a hassle it was to get transferred here?”

“Shut up,” Richie says, biting at his mouth. “Come on, we need to go inside.”

Eddie laughs, and follows him into his apartment. _Their_ apartment, as of one week ago, and wasn’t that a fucking mess. This is the first time Eddie’s even seen it. 

He steps across the threshold, Richie’s hand wrapped around his own. It feels like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE......WHEW. thank u all, i love u. esp erica for test-reading every chapter and gillian for giving me an extra opinion on this one. will i ever write more reddie?? i don't know, but keep ur eyes open. anyway stay golden.


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